CABOT 


LODGE 


POEMS 


1899  - 1902 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


POEMS 

(1899-1902) 


GEORGE  CABOT  LODGE 


POEMS 


1902 

CAMERON,  BLAKE  &  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

70  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1902, 

BY 
CAMERON,  BLAKE  &  COMPANY. 


CONTENTS. 


To  W.  W I 

Outward     5 

The   Voyage    7 

A  Song  for  Waking   10 

The  Greek  Galley 15 

The  World's  Too  Long  About  Us 21 

Les  Bourgeois   23 

A  Song  for  Revolution    25 

The   Heritage    30 

The  Passage    35 

Day  and  Dark 40 

Retrospect    42 

Sonnets    46 

Ode  to  the  Sea  54 

Ode  to  the   Earth    58 

The  Journey  On   64 


223022 


For  E.  L 7i 

The  Sonnets  of  Ishtar 93 

Ad    Servam 97 

Tannhauser  to  Venus   107 

Twilight    in 

Song    H3 

vSonnets    1 17 

Death  in  Youth 122 

Lullaby   125 

After    Death 127 

Women   I32 

At   Daybreak    138 

The  Final  Word 141 

To  C.   L.   G 143 

The  Song  of  Man 147 


TO  W.  W. 

/  toss  upon  Thy  grave, 

(After  Thy  life  resumed,  after  the  pause,  the 
backward  glance  of  Death; 

Hence,  hence  the  vistas  on,  the  march  con 
tinued, 

In  larger  spheres,  new  lives  in  paths  untrodden, 

On!  till  the  circle  rounded,  ever  the  journey 
on!) 

Upon  Thy  grave, — the  vital  sod  how  thrilled 
as  from  Thy  limbs  and  breast  trans 
pired, 

Rises  the  springs  sweet  utterance  of  nowers, — 

/  toss  this  sheaf  of  song,  these  scattered  leaves 
of  love! 

For  thee,  Thy  Soul  and  Body  spent  for  me, 

— And  now  still  living,  now  in  love,  trans 
mitting  still  Thy  Soul,  Thy  Flesh  to  me, 
to  all!— 

These  variant  phrases  of  the  long-immortal 
chant 

I  toss  upon  Thy  grave! 


OUTWARD 


OUTWARD. 

Outward   broad   airs,   the  sea's   unshadowed 

sweep, 

And  larger  voice  on  shores  of  lovelier  lands, 
Starred  heavens  of  vaster  light  and  night  with 

sleep 
Tender  as  women's  hands. 

Outward  the  grave  processional  of  hours, 
Each  a  discovered  joy,  a  solved  surmise, 

Days  dark  in  bud  that  ripening,  fall  like  flowers 
Gardened  in  Paradise. 

Outward!  O  throes  resolved  in  mightier  song! 

Splendour  of  nameless  deeds,  essential  words, 
Merged  in  the  large  acceptance,  in  the  long 

Pulse  of  the  cosmic  chords. 

Outward,  where  every  word  and  deed  is  fit ; 

Outward,    beyond    the    lies    of    name  and 

shame, 
Of  sin  and  ignorance  the  cause  of  it, 

Life's  prison  of  fancied  flame. 


Outward !  O  heart,  the  secret  solved  at  last ! 

Love  that  enfolds,  unites,  and  understands; 
Love  like  the  sea,  with  equal  waters  cast 

On  this  and  alien  lands ! 

Outward !  O  free  at  last !  O  steadfast  soul 
Calm  in  the  poise  of  natural  things !  O  wise, 

How  wise  is  love ! — only,  beyond  control, 
To  pass  with  open  eyes ! 


THE  VOYAGE. 

Outward !  Sail  ever  on  thy  mystic  voyages, 
Cut  loose,  up  anchor   from  the  shores  of 

thought ! 

There  leave  in  safety  all  the  dull  world's  count 
less  captives, 
Seek  thou  the  freedom  only  thou  hast  sought. 

Thine  are  the  prophets,  thine  the  few,  the  poets, 

martyrs, 

Stung  with  the  impulse  of  divine  surmise; 
Thy  chosen  ventured  while  the  millions  feared 

and  faltered, 

Realized  the  rapture,  dared  the  great  sur 
prise. 

Outward!  For,  ever  as  of  old,  the  deep  sea's 

distance, 

Ever  new  skies  to  lift  and  lighten,  lie 
Far  down   the  dusk  of  day-break   from  the 

shores  proved  pathways 
Pathless  to  perilous  eternity. 


[Yea!  tho'  the  friendly  wharves  are  all  aflame 

with  faces, 
Yea!  tho'     their    anger     rave    in     foolish 

sound, — 
Outward! — Their    hands    would    hinder    but 

their  hearts  are  fearful; 
Leave  them  their  fetters,  Thou  shalt  not  be 
bound ! 

What  tho'  they  cry — "Time's  hosts  have  trod 

our  ways  of  life  out, 

Roads,  charts  and  lamplight, — ours  the  val 
ued  prize, 

The  proved!"   Thou   sayest — "My   goal   how 
dim,  my  seas  how  trackless, 

My  risks  how  vast!"  Then  leave  them  to  their 
lies! 

Shake  down  the  sails  to  catch  the  blood-red 

drift  of  sunset! 
Haste !  lest  they  hold  thee  slave  among  the 

slaves. 
Thou  shalt  be  outcast  of  their  laws  and  scorned 

and  homeless : 

The  sin  the  world  blames  is  the  sin  that 
saves. 


9 

Outward !  The  sail  full-breasted  swells  against 

the  night-fall, 
And  now  the  world  where  blind  men  lead 

the  blind, 
The  world  of  laws  and  lies,  of  safety  and 

obedience, 
The  prize,  the  conflict, — all  is  left  behind! 

Outward!  O  haste!  The  flushed  fresh  mouth 

of  dawn  is  calling ! 

Outward !  O  space  at  last !  O  light  at  last ! 
Steer  where  the  comrades  wait  thee,  journey 
ing  still,  still  outward, 
Wise  in  a  conscious  and  perfected  past. 


A  SONG  FOR  WAKING. 

Ere  the  blossom  of  sun  from  the  mystical  bud 
of  the  twilight  is  tenderly,  hugely  un 
furled, 

Ere  the  lion  of  light  from  his  lair  in  the  womb 
of  the  shaken,  green  sea-shadows  leaps 
on  the  world, 

Ere  the  masterful  mistress  anad  mother  of  life 
is  released  as  a  child  from  the  womb  of 
the  night, 

Ere  the  echoing  bell  of  the  heavens  resounds 
with  the  rush  of  the  resonant  pinions 
of  light : 

Ere  the  day  is  declared  and  the  globes  of  the 

dew  are  filled  full  of  the  splendour  of 

opal  and  pearl, 
Ere  the  foam-lilies  dropped  from  the  lap  of 

the  storm  are  as  roses  that  blush  at  the 

breast  of  a  girl, 


M 

Ere  the  aisles  of  the  forest  are  heavy  with  dusk 
and  are  sweet  with  the  murmur  and 
marvel  of  birds, 

Ere  the  dreams  of  the  slumber  of  earth  are  de 
stroyed  and  she  utters  her  hymn  of  in 
effable  words : 

Thro'  the  drift  of  the  derelict  airs,  thro'  the 

wind-trodden  seas  that  are  windless  and 

weary  with  foam, 
On  the  strength  of  the  shouldering  tides  and 

the  roar  of  the  refluent  surge  down  the 

beaches  of  home, 
Comes  the  dream  of  the  darkness  of  light,  the 

frail  flush  of  the  feet  of  the  dawn  down 

the  ways  of  the  sea, 
Thro'  the  measureless  sound  of  the  marching 

of  tides  where  the  steeds  of  the  tempest 

rode  fiercely  and  free ! 

Comes  the  delicate  rapture  of  crimson  as  mute 
and  intense  as  the  dream  of  a  passion 
ate  deed, 

Comes  the  miracle  faultless  as  fire  and  fierce 
as  a  heart  where  desire  is  sown  as  a 
seed, 


\1 

Comes  the  glow  like  a  prayer  on  the  lips  of  a 

prophet  whose  eyes  are  aflame  with  the 

vision  of  God, 
Comes  the  flush  like  the  solemn  delight  of  the 

love  that  can  waken  a  soul  in  the  brute 

or  the  clod. 

And  the  silence  is  rich  with  the  promise  of 
song  as  the  face  of  a  child  in  the  still 
ness  of  sleep, 

And  the  pause  of  the  perfect  fulfillment  is  grave 
as  a  death  on  the  midnight  when  sum 
mer  is  deep, 

And  the  joy  is  the  joy  of  a  woman,  her  love 
and  the  light  of  her  face  and  the  sound 
of  her  feet. 

And  the  calm  is  profound  as  the  calm  of  a  soul 
risen  freely  from  life  with  his  knowl 
edge  complete. 

Over    exquisite    wind-dappled    meadows    that 

cover  the  foot  and  are  fresh  as  a  night 

in  the  fall, 
Where  the  airs  scarce  remember  the  rage  of  the 

tempest  and  darkness  is  deep  round  the 

world  like  a  wall, 


13 

Let  us  forth,  ere  the  skies  are  washed  empty 

of  stars  as  the  wind-rippled  floods  of 

the  day-spring  run  free, 
Let  us  forth  where  the  welkin  is  stately  with 

sound  and  the  headlands  are  held  in 

the  cleave  of  the  sea! 

Let  us  leap  from  the  scattered  sweet  shadows 

of  slumber  and  venture  our  lives  on 

the  charger  of  youth, 
While  the  sunrise  is  closed  as  the  lips  of  a 

girl  ere  the  kiss  of  a  lover  has  kindled 

her  mouth, 
Till  the  languid,  low  airs  smitten  shrill  with 

our  passage  re-echo  the  thunder  of  hoofs 

as  we  ride, 
Let  us  press  down  the  perilous  ways  of  the 

present  our  steed  tho'  he  bleed  'neath 

the  rowel  of  pride ! 

Let  us  press  in  the  hidden  wet  ways  of  the  for 
est  filled  full  of  the  shadows  and 
sounds  of  the  past, 

Let  us  travel  the  fields  by  the  River  of  Years 
till  the  ways  of  the  waters  are  open  at 
last; 


And  our  steed  shall  be  staunch  tho'  he  weary 

and  wince  at  the  spur,  tho'  his  nostrils 

are  purple  with  blood, 
For  the  craving  of  Soul  and  the  power  of 

Love,  for  the  freedom  of  Faith  and  the 

friendship  of  God! 


THE  GREEK  GALLEY. 

The  sound  of  the  sea,  the  sway  of  the  song, 

the  swing  of  the  oar! 
Out  of  the  darkness,  over  the  naked  seas, 
Our  galley  is  come 
With  a  shiver  and  leap, 
As  the  blade  bites  deep 
To  the  sway  of  back  and  the  bend  of  knees, 

As  she  drives  for  home 
Out  of  the  darkness,  over  the  naked  seas, 
To  the  sound  of  sea  and  the  sway  of  song  and 
the  sweep  of  oar ! 

The  scarlet  stars  swing  low  to  the  ocean's  floor 
Made  silver  and  pearl  by  the  slow  resurgent 

sun, 

And  the  waters  -break 
To  a  leprous  wake, 
As  over  the  sea  the  ripples  shake 
Between  dawn  and  dark,  as  for  life's 

sweet  sake 
The  battle  of  life  is  fought  and  won, 


And  evermore, 

To  the  sound  of  sea  and  the  sway  of  song  and 

the  swing  of  oar, 
We  sever  the  sentient  silences 
With  our  wind  and  \vay,  where  over  the 

seas 

The   surf   booms    steady   and   strong  on  the 
scented  shore. 


Over  the  sea's  unfurrowed  fields 
The  miracle  spreads  and  the  darkness  yields. 
O  heart  that  breaks  in  the  strain  and  stress 

Of  sinews  bent  to  the  tempered  oak ! — 
The  golden  gates  of  the  dawn  express 
Sudden  and  soft  as  a  girl's  caress, 

A  glimmer  of  grass  and  a  flash  of  wing, 
An  echo  of  prayer  to  the  censer's  swing, 
And  the  altar's  pillar  of  purple  smoke. 

And   over  the   spray  that  the   rowers 

fling, 

Wide  over  the  tide  where  the  foam- 
drifts  cling, 

As  the  rhythm  of  muscle  and  music 
swing 


\1 

To  the  sound  of  the  sea,  the  sway  of  the  song, 

the  sweep  of  the  oar, 

To  the  crash  and  cream  of  waves  on  the  bounti 
ful  shore, 

The  spring  breaks  scented  over  the  sea ! 
With  a  leap  of  sunlight  under  the  lee, 
As  she  dips  her  side 
To  the  masterful  tide 

And  lists  till  the  bilge  distills  through  the  cy 
press  floor. 


O,  the  lift  of  blade!  O,  the  clinging  and  shift 
ing  of  naked  feet ! 
The  coil  of  muscle  that  stiffens  and  swells  to 

the  delicate  beat 
Of  breath  in  the  nostrils,  of  blood  in  the 

brain, 

As  the  earth-smell  steals  to  our  sense  again 
From  the  pebble-blue  beach  where  the  shadows 
lie  wet  and  sweet ! 


We  have  fought  in  the  noon  for  breath — 
To  the  sound  of  sea  and  the  sway  of  song  and 

the  sweep  of  oar; 
Our  bodies  would  swing  at  the  oars  in  death, 


18 

Nor  the  rhythm  of  muscle  and  music  cease, 
Nor  the  weariness  end,  nor  the  sad  sur 
cease 

Of  sorrow  absolve  us :  but  evermore 
Our  bodies  would  swing  to  the  pitiless  oar 
Till  the  goal  was  reached, 
Till  the  galley  was  beached, 
Till  we  tasted  the  spring  in  the  forests 

and  pleached 

Gardens  and  vineyards  of  Greece  on  the  plen 
tiful  shore! 

The  flurry  of  foam  flecked  red  as  the  dawn 

looks  over  the  trees, 
And  ever  the  motion  of  song  and  the  pulse  of 

ineffable  seas 

That  empty  and  echoless  break  on  the  ex 
quisite  balance  of  air, — 

And  tenderly  winged  on  the  morning,  a  per 
fumed  and  delicate  breeze, 
Where  the  scent  of  the  sacrifice  floats  with 

the  distant  refrain  of  a  prayer, 
Where  the  cry  of  a  bird  and  the  whisper  of 

grass  and  the  lowing  of  kine, 
Are  borne  thro'  the  thunder  of  waves  and 
the  smell  of  the  brine. 


And  behold!   We  are  come,  we  are  there,  we 

shall  pass  thro'  the  fringes  of  foam — 

To  the  sound  of  the  sea  and  the  sway  of  the 

song  and  the  sweep  of  the  oar — 
And  the  galley  be  lifted  and   leap  like  our 

hearts  for  the  rest  that  has  come — 
A  spot  of  sunlight  rolls  on  the  reeking  floor ! 
She  shall  shiver  and  strike  thro'  the  sun 
dered  spray, 

And  the  clean,  fresh  sand  where  the  ebb 
tides  play 
Be  gored  and  gashed  with  her  eager 

keel; 

And  our  feet  shall  feel 
The  swash  of  sea  and  the  crawl  of  sand 
As  we  leap  to  land 
And  pause  and  kneel 
To  the  sound  of  prayer, 
While  thro'  the  air 

The  dawn  expands  till  the  shadows  are  passed 
And  the  noon  is  over  the  sea  at  last ! 

With  our  women  and  slaves,  with  our  oxen 
and  vines,  we  shall  pass  from  the  roar 

And  the  sound  of  the  sea,  the  sway  of  the  song, 
the  sweep  of  the  oar — 


20 

And  stand  where  the  burden  of  spring  on 

the  brows  of  the  hills 
Is  heavy  and  wet — where  the  blowing  of 

pipes  and  the  running  of  rills 
Persist  in  our  ears.— In  the  warmth  of  the 

sun  and  the  wash  of  the  wind, 
In  the  ceasing  of  struggle  and  peace  of  the 

mind, 

With  the  wandering  passed, 

We  are  home  at  last ! 


THE  WORLD'S  TOO  LONG  ABOUT  US. 

The  world's  too  long  about  us ! — Let  us  go 
Far  from  the  righteous  and  the  ignorant, 
The  vacant  phrases  of  familiar  cant, 
The  trivial  loveless  women  and  the  low 
Abortive  men,  the  fashions  stale  and  slow, 
The  greed  of  riches  and  the  crime  of  want ! 

Come !  lest  contentment  dim  the  quenchless  fire, 
Come !  lest  we  lose  from  life  the  magic  spell, 
The  power  of  thought,  the  ceaseless  miracle 

Of  day  and  night,  the  youth  of  love's  desire. 

Come !  lest  we  wear  the  livery,  take  the  hire, 
And  prove  in  virtuous  platitudes  'tis  well. 

Come !  lest  we  take  the  thralldom  and  the  food, 
Accept  the  hire  and  kiss  the  master's  hand, 
Or  hear,  obedient  to  the  world's  command, 

Our  praises  from  the  Ciceronian  "good" ; 

Or  feel  the  shame  of  being  understood 
By  those  we  know  can  never  understand! 


22 

Earth  knows  our  bodies,  heaven  our  conscious 

souls ! 

The  world  is  ignorant  of  all  but  name ; 
Come!  let  us  fear  its  praise  and  seek  its 

blame, 

Take  larger  motives  that  ignore  its  goals, 
And    blow    a    fire    within   life's    smouldering 

coals 
To  scar  its  social  erebus  with  flame! 

Come ! — We  can  feel,  dilate  with  endless  air, 
The  journeying  seas,  or  watch  our  Paris  take 
New  moods    of    laughter,    or    the  sun-God 

shake, 

Low  down  the  Nile,  the  splendour  of  his  hair. 
Extreme  in  joy,  extreme  in  soul's  despair, 
Come!    Let  us  dare  to  go  for  sweet  life's 
sake! 

Life's  choice  is  this :  the  world  or  all  the  rest. 

The  heights  are  lonely  and  the  depths  are 
dark; 

Haply  too  weak  of  soul  I  miss  the  mark 
And  fall  below  the  world's  unloveliest 
Level  of  littleness — I  say  the  best 
Is  mine,  I  venture  life's  extremest  test. 

No  failures  quench  the  Truth's  eternal  spark ! 


23 


LES  BOURGEOIS. 

Be  silent !  Let  them  laugh  and  lie 

Nor  speak  nor  heed  but  come  away; 

In  truth  they  neither  live  nor  die, 
More  vain  than  gaudy  flies  that  play 
And  perish  in  the  vital  day. 

By  rule  and  custom,  time  and  place, 
Secure  in  noise  and  littleness, 

They  live  and  laugh  and  lust  a  space, 
Incurious  of  themselves  lest  stress 
Of  truth  annul  their  nothingness. 

Their  borrowed  praise,  their  hired  blame, 

Their  timid  platitudes,  their  greed, 
The  virtue  of  their  hidden  shame, 
i     The  vices  of  their  sordid  creed, 
Are  theirs  to  serve  a  social  need. 


24 

Their  crime  then  ?     None !  Their  lives  are  food 
To  vainer  things,  and  they  shall  seem, 

Afraid  of  sin,  too  weak  for  good, 
Once  vanished,  like  a  stupid  dream 
That  never  was — and  now  my  theme! — 

Be  something,  good  or  bad !  Be  real ! 
They  are  not, — we'll  take  issue  here 

Against  them ! — not  for  base  ideal 
Or  murdered  truth,  but  for  their  mere 
Respectability,  the  mood  of  fear! 


25 


A  SONG  FOR  REVOLUTION. 

Tho'  the  red-litten  cities  are  shameless  and  the 

rulers  are  guilty  with  gold, 
Tho'  the  lips  of  the  prophet  are  flameless  and 

the  shrines  of  the  sacrifice  cold, 
Tho'  the  shadow  of  freedom  departed  lies  deep 

in  the  paths  where  She  pressed, 
Tho',  a  goddess,  She  grieves  broken-hearted  for 

the  children  who  starve  at  her  breast, 

Tho'  the  forehead  forsaken  of  bay-leaves  is 

bound  with  a  circlet  of  blood 
And  the  sweat  that  the  labour  of  day  leaves 

brews  the  wine  of  the  mercy  of  God, 
Tho'  we  lose  all  the  loves  that  besought  us,  tho' 

our  children  rejoice  in  their  chains, 
Still  we  cling,  as  our  visions  have  taught  us,  to 

the  faith  of  our  raptures  and  pains! 

And  tho'  Nations  forsake  the  desire  and  the 

faith  of  immutable  things, 
Tho'  the  earth  be  subdued  for  their  hire  who 

rejoice  in  the  cities  of  kings, 


26 

Tho'  the  whole  earth  be  theirs  for  their  pleas 
ure,  and  every  man  master  or  slave, 

Still  the  sea  can  afford  beyond  measure  the  in 
heritance  perfect  we  crave! 

We  can  pass  where  the  sand  on  the  shore  is 
made  smooth  as  the  breast  of  a  girl, 

Where  the  waves  whisper  marvellous  stories 
and  the  tideways  are  lustrous  as  pearl, 

Where  the  crest  of  the  breakers  in  onset  sub 
sides  in  a  welter  of  blood 

As  the  flame  of  the  sword  of  the  sunset  is 
plunged  in  the  breast  of  the  flood; 

Where  the  sea-splintered  lightning  of  noon 
lies  in  the  lap  of  the  long  afternoon, 

By  the  fire  of  the  pharos  of  moonrise,  with  the 
faultless,  frail  feet  of  the  moon, 

Over  meadows  of  midnight  where  starlight 
lies  scattered  like  dew  on  a  lawn, 

Let  us  forth  so  we  follow  the  far  light  of  free 
dom,  the  soul's  light  of  dawn! 

Let  us  go  with  the  wind  and  the  twilight  be 
hind  us,  the  rain  in  our  hair, 

With  a  star  on  the  brows  of  the  shy  night  in  in 
effable  heights  of  the  air ; 


27 

The  wide  waters  before  us  shall  whiten,  the 
horizon  that  bound  us  be  rent, 

And  no  longer  our  hearts  as  they  lighten  shall 
grieve  or  complain  or  repent! 

We  have  seen  that  the  progress  they  praise  is 

of  tears  and  enslavement  and  blood, 
Tho'   they   honor   with   blasphemous  phrases 

their  crimes  as  the  service  of  God ; 
In  their  mines  where  the  serfs  they  control 

press,  in  their  factories  reeking  with  coal 
They  must  labor  until  they  are  soulless,  and  the 

birthright  of  man  is  his  soul ! 

Tho*  rejected  of  men  we  seem  friendless,  yet 
all  nature  itself  is  our  home, 

For  we  come  as  the  last  of  an  endless  proces 
sion  and  sing  as  we  come! 

But  they,  faithless  and  cold  to  the  kernel,  with 
their  minds  in  dogmatic  control, 

They  have  lost  the  divine  and  eternal  strong 
joys  of  the  body  and  soul! 

And  we  bear  as  our  brothers  before  us  the  mes 
sage  eternal  and  new, 

The  exultant,  unspeakable  chorus  of  the  souls 
that  are  tender  and  true, 


28 

And  our  word  for  each  comrade  is,  "Thee- 
ward  all  joys  in  the  universe  trend, 

"If  them  darest  with  us  to  go  seaward,  on  the 
seas  of  the  soul  without  end! 

"If  thou  darest  go  forth  from  the  phrases  that 
cheat,  from  the  laws  that  restrain, 

"From  the  shrines  where  the  high-priest  who 
prays  is  untrue  and  the  servant  of  gain, 

"Then  the  light  and  the  love  shall  not  perish 
but  endure  to  illumine  the  years, 

"For  the  fire  of  rebellion  we  cherish  is  Prome 
thean  and  ours  by  our  tears." 

It  is  naught  if  the  loveliest  spaces  of  earth  bear 

the  soilure  of  greed 
For  a  day  or  an  aeon  effaces  the  purpose,  the 

profit,  the  deed; 
It  is  naught  if  they  bring  us  disaster,  if  they 

blacken  the  skies  in  our  ken, 
But  we  weep  for  the  slave  and  the  master,  for 

the  stunted  and  loveless,  the  men ! 

It  is  naught  if  a  man  be  defeated,  it  is  naught  if 

he  suffer  and  die, 
It  is  naught  if  he  starve  and  is  cheated  by  the 

greedy  who  pillage  and  lie, 


29 

It  is  much  if  reduced  to  a  fashion  or  bound  in 

whatever  control, 
His  body  is  scanted  of  passion,  or  he  forfeits 

the  light  of  his  soul ! 

And  we  whisper  to  all  men  and  women,  "Lo ! 
the  light  is  at  hand,  and  the  way, 

"Be  it  strange,  be  it  guarded  with  foemen,  is 
broad  as  the  justice  of  day; 

"You  shall  no  more  be  joyless  or  lonely,  our  se 
cret  shall  amply  suffice, 

"For  man's  world  is  a  fashion  and  only  man's 
body  and  soul  are  of  price !" 


30 


THE  HERITAGE. 

O,  say  in  the  splendour  of  days  that  await  us, 

the  scope  and  desire  of  midnights  to  be, 
The  fruit  of  what  powerful  passions  shall  sate 

us,   what   Truths   more   effusive   shall 

make  us  more  free  ? 
.What  new  depths  of  the  soul  shall  we  seek  and 

discover,   what  strength  of  the  body, 

what  heat  of  the  heart? 
In  the  dream  of  the  seer,  on  the  lute  of  the 

lover,  what  secrets  shall  yield  and  what 

melodies  start? 

Shall  the  days  be  more  ample  and  florid  before 
us,  the  large  nights  more  pregnant  of 
mystical  birth? 

What  fresh  voices  shall  peal  what  ineffable 
chorus,  what  beauty  revive  the  old  leg 
ends  of  earth  ? 


3( 

The  old  ramparts  of  thought,  shall  they  fall 
and  be  shattered?  The  old  barriers  of 
Love,  shall  they  splendidly  fade? 

Shall  the  heavy  heaped  dust  of  remembrance 
be  scattered,  our  pleasures  by  loftier 
joys  be  repaid  ? 

Since  the  rapture  of  Life  is  the  longing  that 
rages  and  Truth  is  the  wisdom  that 
kindles  to  flame, 

So  the  judgments  of  God  and  the  laws  of  the 
sages,  man's  virtue  and  evil,  his  praise 
and  his  blame, 

Shall  be  fused  in  the  Truth  of  what  new  reve 
lation,  dissolved  in  the  floods  of  what 
limitless  light? 

As  we  forfeit  our  hearts  to  what  new  expecta 
tion,  what  senses  shall  thrill  to  what 
nameless  delight? 

In  what  wise  shall  the  lips  of  our  new  loves 

grow  fervent,  what  dreamed-of  caresses 

lie  warm  in  their  hands? 
Than  the  Gods  who  made  Sapho  their  priestess 

and  servant,  what  lovelier  Gods  shall 

inflict  their  commands? 


32 

When  the  altars  of  Love  are  heaped  up  over- 
measure,  when  the  passion  of  love 
grows  intense  as  despair, 

What  embrace  shall  afford  what  unbearable 
pleasure,  on  what  breast,  in  the  perfume 
and  dusk  of  what  hair? 


And  the  elder  grave  Gods  we  have  chosen  and 
cherish,  bright  Gods  of  our  youth  that 
were  sumptuous  and  young! — 

Must  they  fail  in  the  light  of  new  vistas  and 
perish  as  fail  in  long  twilights  the  pulse 
of  a  song? 

Shall  perfections  so  distant  they  seemed  a  de 
rision,  the  wild  aspirations  we  dared 
not  avow, 

Be  revealed  in  a  solvent  new  vastness  of  vision, 
attained  in  a  mightier  moment  than 
now? 

Then  what  holier  shrines  shall  receive  our  ob 
lation,  what  visions  reveal  more  ineffa 
ble  skies? 

As  we  pass  from  the  creeds  of  our  old  adora 
tion  what  marvels  shall  wake  a  more 
pregnant  surmise? 


33 

What  new  virtues  and  sins  shall  complete  and 
delight  us,  what  tenderness  thrill  in  our 
hearts  like  a  song? 

In  what  paths  where  what  marvellous  day- 
spring  shall  light  us,  what  chorus  of 
Heroes  shall  hail  us  along? 


All  the  questions  are  vain    yet  the  day  never 

faileth  to  light  the  large  dusk  of  the 

limitless  past, 
And  desire  forever  in  all  ways  availeth  to  bring 

all  the  largess  we  long  for  at  last ; 
A  new  ecstasy  wakes  to  a  novel  desire,  to  a 

vision   more   wise   new   horizons   shall 

swell, 
Tho'  we  will  to  ring  round  the  huge  heavens 

with  fire  or  satiate  such  passions  they 

know  not  in  hell ! 


Tho'  we  will  to  be  God  all-receptive  in  heaven, 

yet  our  longing  To  Be  is  forever  too 

small ; 
We  are  more  than  we  know,  as  we  ask  shall  be 

given,  to  ourselves  and  to  only  ourselves 

we  are  thrall; 


34 

With  the  sword  of  our  will  we  may  rend  as  a 

curtain  the  dusk  of  desires  that  wince 

and  withhold, 
Whatsoever  we  ask  for  the  guerdon  is  certain, 

be    it    dust    or   the    dawn-star,    God's 

heaven  or  gold ! 


35 


THE  PASSAGE. 

Onward  ever  and  outward  ever,  over  the  utter 
most  verge  of  the  earth, 
With  ever  before  us  the  perilous  vista,  behind 
us  the  laughter  and  light  of  the  hearth ; 
With  the  wind  of  the  wilderness  fresh  in  our 
faces,  the  rain  in  our  hair  like  a  chap- 
let  of  light, 

As  the  silent,  low  shine  of  the  dawn,  like  a  dew- 
fall,  is  sifted  and  shed  thro'  the  raiment 
of  night. 
And  the  airs  shall  be  smitten  in  sunder 

Before  us 

With  lightning  and  voices  of  thunder 
In  chorus. 


36 

We  shall  pass  over  desolate  places,  strange  for 
est  and  measureless  plain, 
And  the  noon  shall  relent  and  the  spaces  of 

midnight  be  severed  in  twain ; 
Over  meadows  that  murmur  with  fountains, 

where  rivers  like  serpents  lie  curled, 
We  shall  pass  to  the  wall  of  the  mountains, 
crouched  low  on  the  edge  of  the  world : 
Till  the  last  low  ledge  of  the  lea 

Makes  division, 
Till  the  wild,  wide  waste  of  the  sea 

Fills  our  vision, 
We  must  journey  in  morning  and  midnight, 

we  must  travel  in  sorrow  and  mirth, 
Onward  ever  and  outward  ever,  over  the  utter 
most  verge  of  the  earth ! 

Onward  ever  and  outward  ever,  over  the  utter- 
termost  verge  of  the  sea, 

Out  over  the  tremulous  tides  and  the  trackless 
waste  ways  to  the  wall  of  the  firmament 
free, 

Fulfilled  of  the  light  of  ineffable  spaces,  the 
echoless  thunder  of  wind  in  the  night, 

And  broad  in  the  burnished  blue  hollow  of 
heaven  the  endless  procession  of  dark 
ness  and  light. 


For  the  fire  of  the  full  moon  shall  waken 

To  find  us, 
And  the  hounds  of  the  storm  be  forsaken 

Behind  us ; 
\Ve  shall  on  thro'  the  vistas  uncertain,  having 

neither  beginning  nor  end, 
Tho'  as  folds  of  a  fluttering  curtain  the  deep 

sea  be  shaken  and  rend, 
Tho'  the  sea,  where  the  foam-rivers  run  white, 

be  naked  and  weary  and  blind 
As  the  breast  of  a  shield  in  the  sunlight,  or 

black  with  the  scourges  of  wind : 
Till  the  great  green  wall  of  the  wave 

Shall  cover  us, 
Or  the  sweet  spring  grass  of  the  grave 

Blow  over  us, 
We  must  on  till  we  fall  in  our  traces,  we  must 

follow  the  dawn  and  be  free, 
Onward  ever  and  outward  ever,  over  the  utter 
most  verge  of  the  sea! 

Onward  ever  and  outward  ever,  over  the  utter 
most  verge  of  the  Soul, 

Out  over  the  ages  resumed  in  remembrance, 
the  priest's  and  the  tyrant's  relentless 
control, 


33 

The  puny  divisions  of  evil  and  virtue,  restric 
tions  of  men  and  commandments  of 
God,— 

O,  ever  the  Soul  in  all  paths  and  all  places 
where  straying  or  striving  the  Children 
have  trod ! 
For  the  Great  Gods  who  curse  and  defile  us 

Shall  fear  us, 
And  all  men  who  hate  and  revile  us 

Shall  hear  us ; 

And  the  bonds  of  allegiance  that  fetter  the 
spirit,  the  oaths  of  obedience  sworn  in 
the  past, 

Shall  be  words  of  the  lesson  of  life  we  inherit, 
embraced,  understood,  superseded  at 
last. 

We  are  done  with  the  Gods  of  our  old  adora 
tion,   we  acknowledge  they  served  in 
their  turn  and  were  fair, 
But  we  go,  for  behold !  after  long  preparation 
what  no  man  has  dared  to  discover  we 
dare! 
Till  the  Body  and  Soul  and  all  time 

Shall  be  blended, 
Aspiration  and  virtue  and  crime 
Comprehended, 


39 

We  must  fathom  the  sense  and  the  spirit  till  we 
stand  self-possessed  of  the  whole, 

Onward  ever  and  outward  ever,  over  the  utter 
most  verge  of  the  Soul ! 


4C 


DAY  AND  DARK. 

Now  the  golden  fields  of  sunset  rose  on  rose 

to  me-ward  fall, 
Down  the  dark  reverberate  beaches  clear  and 

far  the  sea-birds  call, 
Blue  across  the  fire-stained  waters,  eastward 

thrusts  the  chuckling  tide, 
Fresh  as  when  the  immortal  impulse  took  the 

lifeless  world  for  bride. 

Now  the  shore's  thin  verge  of  shallows  keep 
the  tense  and  tender  light, 

Now  the  stars  hang  few  and  faultless,  dia 
demed  on  the  brows  of  night, 

Now  the  moon's  unstinted  silver  falls  like  dew 
along  the  sea 

While  from  far  a  friendly  casement  softly  fills 
with  light  for  me. 


41 

So  it  ends !  I  reaped  the  harvest,  lived  the  long 
and  lavish  day, 

Saw  the  earliest  sunlight  shiver  thro'  the  break 
ers'  endless  play, 

Felt  the  noonday's  warm  abundance,  shared 
the  hours  of  large  repose, 

While  the  stately  sun  descended  thro'  the  twi 
light's  sumptuous  close. 

Now  the  night- fall — Ah !  I  guess  the  immortal 

secret,  glimpse  the  goal, 
Know  the  hours  have  scanted  nothing,  know 

each  fragment  hints  the  whole, 
While  the  Soul  in  power  and  freedom  dares 

and  wills  to  claim  its  own, 
Star   over   star,    a   larger,    lovelier   unknown 

heaven  beyond  the  known! 


42 


RETROSPECT. 

Beyond  the  earth  is  sea, 

Beyond  the  sense  is  soul, 
Beyond  this  life  a  little  sleep, 

Beyond  the  race  the  goal. 

I  know  the  earth  is  young, 

And  time  a  little  thing; 
When  first  the  stars  harmonious  sung 

Thro'  heaven,  I  heard  them  sing. 

Full  well  I  know  that  I 

Was  there  when  chaos  hurled 

Formless  and  fervent  on  the  void 
The  huge  and  pregnant  world. 

Sheer  down  the  endless  skies 

We  took  our  furious  flight, 
Our  wings  of  flame  flapped,  vast  and  dumb, 

Against  the  ageless  night. 


43 

Helmless  and  wild  we  crossed 

The  eternal  seas  of  space, 
And  moored  beside  the  sun  and  swung 

In  our  predestined  place. 

Pure  as  a  distant  song, 

Echoed  from  south  to  north, 
The  strange  first  dawn  came  grave  and  strong, 

Gigantically  forth. 

The  sheer  black  pinnacle 

Of  sky  grew  vaguely  blue, 
As  down  the  cold,  thin,  empty  airs 

The  red  light  glistered  thro'. 

And  when  the  last  stars  died 

About  the  noonday  sun, 
And  on  the  enormous  distance  fell 

Daylight's  oblivion, 

I  saw  green  tendrils  blur 

The  acrid  plains,  the  sea 
Suck  down  between  the  naked  hills, 

Roaring  immeasurably. 


44 

Then  day  retired,  night  fell, 

Frail  breezes  shook  the  air; 
The  moon  showed  large  between  the  stars 

Her  void  unfaltering  stare. 

Thro'  all  the  perfect  night 

Ringing  with  silver,  I 
Stood  in  my  human  solitude, 

Wondering  ineffably. 

Then,  in  response,  I  heard 

A  voice  within  me  sing: 
"I  know  the  stars  are  very  young, 

"And  Time  a  little  thing! 

"Always  Truth  waits  beyond 

"Larger  and  more  divine : 
"The  immeasurable  Past 

"And  light  and  life  are  mine. 

"Father,  O  Soul  of  Me! 

"Thy  scope  is  never  whole; 
"Always  a  new  infinity 

"Lies  waiting  for  the  Soul !" 


45 


Beyond  the  earth  is  sea, 
Beyond  the  sense  is  soul, 

Beyond  this  life,  a  little  sleep, 
Beyond  the  parts  the  whole ! 


46 

SONNETS. 
I. 

Cut  loose !     Hoist  sail !     Leave    the    familiar 

shores 

Of  life !     Drive  out  on  love's  enormous  wind 
Far  from  the  safe  small  pieties  and  blind 
Tangles  of    conscience!     O    set    wide    the 

doors 

And  throw  the  strong  arms  open  utterly ! 
Go    forth    reckless    with    faith    and    unre- 

signed, 

Thus  only  seeking  shall  you  surely  find 
The  peril  and  rapture  of  true  liberty ! 
Thus  only  shall  divine  discoveries 

Stretch  the  vague  margins  of  the  conscious 

soul 

And  fire  the  peaks  of  more  inclusive  skies ; 
Thus  may  we  burst  the  self-created  bond 
Of  sordid  fears  and  hear  life's  surges  roll 
On  shores  of  truth  that  always  lie  beyond! 


47 


II. 


Would  I  were  hopeful  as  the  tender  leaves, 
Would  I  were  faithful  as  the  myriad  grass, 
Kindling  conviction  in  the  ways  I  pass ; 
Would  I  believed  as  every  flower  believes ! 

The  pale  wheat  springs  and  flowers,  the  golden 

sheaves 
Serve   in   their   turn — the   Earth's   religion 

brings 

Proof  of  the  power  and  miracle  of  things, 
That  none  are  infidel  and  no  thing  grieves. 

No  thing  in  nature  grieves  and  all  things  die ; 
Yea!  from  their  burial  Life  is  born  anew: 
O    faithful     grass    of    graves! — perchance 
when  I 

Change  to  the  earth's  desire,  my  soul  shall  take 
Thy  lesson  of  faith  and  joy  and  still  renew 
My  journey  onward  for  the  journey's  sake! 


III. 


The  earth  is  glad  of  travail  and  laboring : 
The  flower  the  whole  sun's  kiss  is  spent  upon, 
The  leaves  light,  as  of  sea  depths  smitten 

with  sun 

And  musical  with  incessant  murmuring, — 
Bound  as  a  girdle,  the  strong  sea's  silver  ring, 
Where  thro'  and  thro'  the  deep,  clear  hair  of 

night 
Stars  tread  the  chattering  tides  and  swollen 

with  light 
Moon  walks  beneath  the  slow  dawn's  fervent 

wing,— 

Earth,  sea, — to  them  the  large,  fresh,  passion 
ate  deed 

Of  life  is  glad  and  wise — how  wise  is  faith! 
Life's  harvest  flowers,  death  sows  the  ex- 

haustless  seed : 

We  probe  the  intention  till  the  soul  has  won 
Vista, — awake  at  last!  Yea!  journeying  on 
Equal    and   wise   and    free   with   life   and 

death ! 


49 


IV. 


How  long  the  impassive  feet  of  Time  have  trod 
The  myriads  and  their  monuments  to  dust! 
How  long  the  frailest,  loveliest  leaves  have 

trust ! 
How  long  life  urges  in  the  reeking  sod ! 

The  flower  is  witless  of  a  master's  rod, 

The  sunlight  warms  the  unjust  with  the  just, 
The  he-bird,  joyous  in  his  vernal  lust, 
Carols  in  native  ignorance  of  God. 

And,  when  the  travesty  of  God's  control 
And  human  reason  leave  us  at  the  last 
Naked  before  the  all-receptive  Soul, 

Incurious  of  the  ends  of  life  and  death, 

Numb  with  the  monstrous  effort  of  our  past, 
We  pray  the  bird  for  joy,  the  flower  for 
faith. 


50 


V. 


Most  lone  and  loveliest  star,  in  glimmering 

spheres 

Of  twilight  hung,  as  tho'  the  lids  of  night, 
In  one  liquescent  utterance  large  as  light, 
Let  fall  the  delicate  silver  of  her  tears; 

Monotonous  music  mute  to  mortal  ears, 
Vibrant  as  birds  that  cry  across  the  bright 
Silence  and   thro'    the   distance  tense   and 

white, 

Where  loud  as  life  the  incessant  dawn  ap 
pears. 

Thou  art,  O  star,  how  like  a  conscious  soul 
Leaving  the  shadowy  shores  of  life  to  blend 
Deep  in  the  lustre  of  its  native  sea ! 

Or  like,  in  heaven,  the  pure  and  liquid  toll 
Of  one  unechoing  bell  to  mark  the  end 
Of  God's  rule  in^  man's  infidelity ! 


VI. 


How  many  a  wave,  O  shore  of  life,  to  thee 
Has  flowed,  and  murmuring,  teased  thine 

ignorance ! 
How  many  a  derelict   from  the  winds  of 

chance 

Has  signaled  some  unguessed  eternity! 
The  passion  and  pulse  and  power  of  all  the  sea 
Fills  the  thin  foam  with  fierce  significance, 
And    thro'    the    sea-moods,    to    the    deeper 

glance, 

Pierces  the  same  intention  utterly. 
Still,  from  life's  shores  to  sea-ward,  can  the 

soul, 
Glimmering  in  dawn,   spread  out  a   wider 

pool 
Of  light  and   vision   till   shadows   flow   to 

flame, 

As  one  by  one  we  dare  include  the  whole 
Of   human   change   within   our   scope,    nor 

school 
Our   hearts   to   virtue   more   than   sin   and 

shame. 


52 


VII. 

Mine  is  the  bellowing,  all-receiving  sea, 

Mine  the  long  beaches  blurred  with  drifted 
foam, 

Mine  the  blind  earth,  the  human  lights  of 
home, 

The  midnight  shuddering,   deepening  end 
lessly. 

Mine  is  the  world  to-night !     Yea !    Mine  shall 
be 

Vistas  and  vaster  worlds,  a  certain  dower, 

When  after  faith,  free  love  and  conscious 
power, 

Soul  dares  desire  its  own  infinity. 
Naught  can  be  asked  or  given  for  all  is  ours : 

Ours  of  all  space  the  cold  incessant  miles, 

Ours  of  all  time  the  full,  unstinting  hours ; 
And  ours  the  sea  beyond,  that  round  the  warm 

Shores  of  our  being  whiles  will  sleep  and 
whiles 

Breathe  thro'  the  soul  the  epic  voice  of  storm. 


53 


VIIL 

THE  POET. 

He  comes  last  of  the  long  processional, 

Last  of  the  perfect  lovers,  doomed  as  they 
To  live  ever  more  lonely  day  by  day 
By  all  rejected  and  condemned  by  all. 

Hands  stretch  to  hold  him,  passionate  voices 

call, 

Bright  lips  beseech  him, — yet  he  cannot  stay. 
Treading  in  the  large  night  his  outward  way 
He  learns  how  much  the  crowns  are  spiri 
tual. 

His  heaven  is  godless  since  his  faith  is  whole; 
No  thing  but  finds  in  him  a  perfect  love, 
No  flower,  no  star  but  buds  within  his  soul. 

Labor  and  sleep,  the  warmth  of  home  belong 
To  all  but  him, — he  feels  instead  thereof 
His  heart's  blood  smelted  to  the  ore  of  song. 


54 


ODE  TO  THE  SEA. 

Lure  me,  O  musical  motions  of  the  sea, 

Thou    of    the    cosmic    heart    most    mighty 

mood! 
And  breathe  beside  me  once  again,  O  ye 

Intimate  whispers  of  the  outlawed  wind ! 
And  grant,  O  Earth  of  long  maternity, 

While  dawn  grows  golden  like  an  infant 

God 
Who  walks  the  young  world's  twilight  nude 

and  free, 
Thy  latest  child  the  rest  he  cannot  find ! 

Still  as  I  sought  thee  soul  and  flesh  were  fain ! 

Before  the  flower  of  sunset,  one  by  one, 
Scattered  its  petals  like  a  golden  rain, 

Before  the  twilight  clear  as  amethyst 
Covered  my  lidless  eyes,  within  my  brain 

Seemed,  in  the  lasting  silence  of  the  sun, 
All  life  as  interludes  of  uttered  pain 

That    scar    the    lips    of    Heaven's    mute 
Agonist ! 


55 

I  am  the  heir  to  Time's  exceeding  dower : 
Ease  me,  thou  minstrel  of  the  changeless 

theme ! 
Now   while   the   midnight   yields   the   mystic 

flower 

Of  moondawn,  violent  as  a  sanguine  stain, 

Like  love's  desire  that  in  night's  loneliest  hour 

Dawns  thro'  the  empty  twilight  of  a  dream, 

Mend   with   thy   music-threads  of   faith   and 

power 

Life's   raiment   ruinous   with   surmise  and 
pain! 

Moon-like  the  motion  of  thy  rhythmic  cries 

Has  lured  how  many  a  sea  of  tears  to  flood ! 
How  many  a  time  thy  sacramental  sighs, 

Swelling  the  daedal  veins  of  silence,  bring, 
In  eastern  chambers  where  the  darkness  dies, 

Thro'  Death's  half- fallen  veil  of  solitude, 
Desirous  tears,  sad  eucharist  of  eyes 

Last  opening  over  earth's  essential  spring ! 

Soon  shalt  thou  feel  the  miracle  of  light 
Soft  as  the  distant  music  of  a  shell  ; 
Thy  voice  that  creeps  around  the  world  to 
night 


56 

Breathes  from  long  vistas  of  deciduous 

years, 
Since  first  thy  bitter  waters  void  of  sight, 

Sterile  of  seasons,  on  earth's  valleys  fell 
As  fall  like  darkness  in  the  soul  the  bright 
Burden  of  life's  insuperable  tears! 


Soothe  me !    For  when  the  sundawn  gilds  thy 

tide, 
Poised   like  love's  lotos  on  life's  perilous 

stream, 

When  flower  by  flower  the  earth  grows  open- 
eyed, 
Almost  I  would  to  God  my  soul  were 

drawn 

Where  body  and  soul  seem  nearly  to  divide, 
Till,   lapsed   from   life's  dark  labyrinth  of 

dream, 
I  ceased  in  darker  solitudes  and  wide 

Eventual  silence  of  the  ripening  dawn. 

Louder  than  cymbals,  on  thy  silver  breast 

The  gold  of  sunrise  falls — our  loneliness 

Ends  with  the  shadows  and  the  vain  unrest 

Of  life  returns  like  long-familiar  pain. 


57 

Grant  me  the  soul's  deep  truth  thy  voice  ex 
pressed, 

The  power  to  live  in  human  tenderness, 
Yea!  tho'  I  pass,  repass,  and  never  rest 

Still  bound  to  life  and  death's  immortal 
chain ! 

Then  shall  the  seas  of  soul  be  like  to  thine, 
Endless  in  stately  vistas  drowned  in  sun; 
Then  shall  I  take  thy  perilous  call  for  sign, 

Then  shall  I  leave  the  world's  familiar 

shore 
Seizing  the  soul's  inheritance  for  mine; 

Then,  while  the  huge  horizons  merge  to  one 
All-welcoming  sphere,  O  then  the  Ship  Divine 
Lost    in    the    daybreak    shall    return    no 
more! 


ODE  TO  THE  EARTH. 
I. 

O  tireless  earth !    O  earth  of  long  desire ! 
Old   earth   whence   now   the   gradual   leaves 

transpire, 

Earth  of  eternal  seasons,  let  me  feel 
The  folded  flower  of  thy  returning  spring 
Thrill  with  the  urge  of  life's  divine  appeal ! 
Grant  me,  O  earth,  the  faith  thy  seasons  bring ! 

Thro'  silent  airs,  from  sky  to  sky, 

The  effluent  tides  of  darkness  pour, 

With  foam  of  fire  against  the  sunset's  shore ; 

And  now,  as  one  by  one  the  bird-cries  die, 

Singly  thine  ancient  silences  redeem 

vSpaces  that  verge  a  sea  of  sleepy  sound, 

And,  'stablished  thro'  the  immobile  dusk,  they 

seem 
Like    song   but    lately    ceased,    while    on  the 

wound 
Of  daily  life  descends  the  balm  of  dream. 


59 


II. 


O  earth  across  thy  sentient  sleep, 
Like  silent  maidens,  one  by  one, 
Meseems  thy  countless  days,  dead  daughters  of 

the  sun, 

Their  unforgetful  journey  keep. 
Meseems  beneath  the  masque  of  night, 
Clear  in  thy  dreams,  their  large,   remorseful 

eyes 

Always  are  overflowed  with  quenchless  light; 
While,  from  their  cataract  of  golden  hair, 
Falls  an  ethereal  fragrance  and  their  shattered 

skies 

Are  swayed  with  elemental  tides  of  air. 
For  surely  when  the  world  is  fain 
Of  thy  desire  that  never  dies, 
Thy  toil  of  child-birth  stirs  again 
The  mighty  legend  of  thy  memories, 
Till,  even  as  when  the  feet  of  Lilith  pressed 
Thy  fruitless  sod  and  roused  the  tardy  spring, 
Pale  in  thy  florid  sleep,  thy  daughters  bring 
Thrills  of  remembrance  yearning  in  thy  breast, 
And  this  to-night  is  stirred,  as  one  by  one, 
Rain-robed  or  bright  with  raiment  of  the  sun, 


60 

Like  some  processional  of  barefoot  boys, 
They  move  across  thy  dream  and  all  their  pain, 
Their  gifts,  too  generous,  and  their  splendid 

joys 
Seem  like  loved  voices  lost  and  heard  again. 


III. 


Surely  as,  when  the  firmamental  airs 
Grow,  in  a  warm  and  lovelier  noonday,  sweet 
With  flowers  thy  fruitful  bosom  bears, 
Forth  from  thy  vistaed  memories  flow 
Thy  life's  unnumbered  days  that  tread  with 

ghostly  feet 

Thy  large  and  dreamful  slumber,  so 
Seen  in  the  truth  of  thine  essential  mood, 
All  things  that  were  return  and  none  can  die 
Save  for  the  ends  of  life.     God  knows  if  I, 
Tired  with  all  the  task  of  time, 
Died  at  thy  breast,  my  cold  and  pulseless  blood 
Would  stir  to  feel  the  essential  ichor  climb 
The  world's  wide  uplands,  or  beside 
My  cheek  the  winds  grow  warm,  or  on  my 

mouth  the  sweet 
Savour  of  sunrise,  or  against  my  naked  side 


tff 

The  thrust  of  earliest  grass,  the  chill  of  dew. 
Yea !    even  my  mere  mute  flesh  would  wake 

anew, 
O  earth  of  graves  and  flowers,  as  thou  dost 

take 
The  burden  of  new  birth  for  mere  life's  sake ! 


IV. 


Grant  me  to  know  thy  larger  love !   If  I 
Alway  must  go,  beneath  the  self-same  sky, 
Thro'  life  and  death  and  can  no  more  depart, — 
Grant,  if  I  wisely  serve  thy  large  commands, 
That  rivers  of  thine  own  rhythm  drown  my 
heart ! 

For  now  meseems  my  life  is  grown, 
Vain  as  a  shattered  bowl 
To  hold  the  essential  vintage  of  the  soul. 
Change  me  from  small  endeavors  crazed  to  win 
Mean  ends  for  aims  whose  littleness  is  sin 
To  moods  profound,  effusive,  all  thine  own ; 
Till,  flower  by  flower  I  understand 
As  day  by  day  the  miracles  expand! 


V. 


Now  spring  from  seaward  blows,  anon 

The  winds  grow  cold  as  one  by  one 

They  take  the  withering  leaves, — thro'  storm 

and  calm 

Thy  lips  are  flowing  with  the  eternal  psalm 
Of  moving  seas,  but  still  beneath  the  masque 
Of  seas  and  seasons  in  their  tireless  task 
Thy  mood  is  silence  and  thy  gift  is  grace ! 
Tho'  endless  years  replenish  and  efface, 
Thou  art  as  one  whose  soul  beneath  the  test 
Of  human  agony  and  human  strife, 
This  restless  interlude  of  life, 
Is  conscious  of  eternal  rest 
In  spheres  whose  very  scope  is  peace! 
Thou  sayest  that  life  shall  never  cease, 
Yet  now  I  dream  that  death  has  ceased  to  be 
And  life  has  ceased ;  Yea !  Life  appears  to  me 
A  bowl  of  Lethean  wine  whose  margin's  curve 
Is  burned  and  bitter  with  the  eager  kiss 
Of  myriads  tortured  by  the  thirst  they  serve. 
While  in  my  dreams  thy  natural  pieties 
Seem  as  the  phases  of  the  soul  that  is 
But  neither  lives  nor  dies! 


63 

And  when  at  last  my  visions  fade  to  this 
Level  of  lawn,  and  when  thy  silences 
Are  mightily  'stablished,  as  the  emphatic  hand 
Of  darkness  stays  the  cries  of  sleepy  birds 
And  turns  the  golden  breezes  blind  and  bland, 
Then  all  my  dreams,  desires  and  words 
Depart  and  leave  me  silent  with  the  deep 
Meanings  of  silence ;  thro'  my  darkened  mind 
Light  buds,  as  now,  thro'  tides  of  warmer  wind, 
Stars  blossom  on  the  night,  and  life  seems  large 

as  sleep. 

Then  idly,  tenderly,  my  hand 
Falls  on  thy  flowers  still  fresh  with  happy  rain 
And  wise  with  tears  I  seem  to  understand 
The  purposes  of  pain ! 


THE  JOURNEY  ON. 
I. 

My  lips  shall  kiss  thy  brows ! 

Thy  blood — now  in  my  heart  perchance  the 

pulse  of  it! — 
Shall  fall  upon  my  face  from  all  the  thorns. 

Of  their  dead  lives  who  killed  and  felt  the 
scorn, 

Thy  pity, — all  its  justice,  vista,  faith, 
How  utterly  dim,  unguessed,  or  briefly  seen 
As  tho'  a  starred  night  thro'  a  wall's  interstice 
glimpsed  or  sea-view  caught  between 
the  crouching  hills, — 

When  once,  in  some  long-hence,  prepared  ar 
rival, 

Realized  and  known  by  me,  in  me  comprised, 
Shall  round  the  soul's  slow  spheres  and  lift  a 
larger  horizon ! 


65 

Then  all  the  strewing  of  light  in  all  thy  ways, 
(Now  even  I  glimpse  thee  by  the  self-same 

light) 

Shall  flow  between  our  eyes  incessantly; 
Then  as  my  lips  gleam  crimson  from  thy  brows 
And  feel  thy  lips — the  comrades  kiss  at  last ! 

II. 
Long  hence  thou  shalt  acclaim  me! 

In  retrospect  of  mine  how  many  a  god! — 
Fauns,    stream-side   nymphs,   in  twilights   of 

mid-May 

Shy  hamadryads  and  reluctant  ghosts, 
Ishtar  in  Babylon  who  trod 
Hearts  of  fierce  lovers  in  her  wine-press  out, 
Setebos,  Hapi  and  the  phallic  Min, 
Thoth  with  a  mystic  wisdom,  lahveh,  Baal, 
Ra,  and  the  glorious,  strange  moon-father  Sin, 
Golden  Apollo  with  the  throbbing  throat, 
White  Aphrodite  in  the  mid-seas  blue — 
These,  and  of  all  my  mythic  infancy  the  dim 

and  elder  gods, 
Gods    that    no    legend    hints,    no    indirection 

proves, 


66 

I,  journeyed  on  in  paths  by  them  untrodden, 

On  seas  unhinted  in  their  charts,  their  indica 
tions,  prophecies, 

After  an  age  of  years  turning,  resume,  inter 
pret : 

These,  now  with  negligent  arms  about  my 
neck, 

Grave  heads  against  my  breast,  deep  eyes  to 
mine, 

Come  face  to  face  at  last,  at  last  acclaim  me! 


So  thou,  Essenian  of  the  later  Gods, 
As  these  my  childhood's  aspirations  one  by  one, 
After  long  journeys   done,    dreams   realized, 
thoughts    explored,     faint    indications 
proved, 

Meet  me  and  mate  me  with  deep,  quiet  eyes — 
I  knowing  we  all  are  equal  Gods  at  last — 
And  kiss  my  naked  brows  and  send  me  forth 
Vaster  by  them,  by  love  and  knowledge  of 

them — 
So  thou! — the  pause  returned,  the  vaster  task 

resumed,  the  distance  measured, — 
Surely  my  soul  shall  find  thee  somewhere  wait 
ing  then ! 


67 

Surely  mine  eyes,  sphered  to  how  vast  a  light, 
Shall  tally  thine,  surely  my  neck  shall  feel 
The   strength    and    tenderness    of   thy   sweet 

pierced  hands, 

Surely  thy  brows  shall  share  with  mine — we 
equal   Gods  at  last! — the  sacred  bur 
den  of  thy  human  blood, 
The  while  thy  sad,  pierced  feet,  in  all  my  ways, 
Equally  go  with  even  pace  with  mine,  by  open 
roads,  by  open  seas  vistaed  before  us, 
still  untrod,  uncrossed  by  thee  or  me, 
As  we  together  take  the  long,  long  journey  on! 


FOR.  E.  L 


FOR  E.  L. 
I. 

She  stands  before  me  till  the  space  grows  void, 
And  round  her  form  the  desert's  sterile  heat 
Throbs  with  the  tread  of  strong,  impassive 

feet 

And  song   in    fanes    She   builded   and  de 
stroyed. 

The  tideless  waters  swell  and  fall,  the  beat 
Of  sunlight  thrills  along  her  limbs  and  glows 
On  jade  and  turquoise,  and  her  even  brows 
With  myrrh  and  natron  seem  forever  sweet. 

She,  child  of  mightier  days  and  larger  loves, 
Stands  like  a  silence  in  the  sound  of  life, 
And  recent  things  about  her  beauty  seem 

Vain  and  unlovely  as  our  human  strife; 
Wise  and  ineffable  as  Truth  She  moves 
As  moves  a  great  thought  thro*   a  foolish 
dream. 


72 


II. 


She  moves  in  the  dusk  of  my  mind  like  a  bell 

with  the  sweetness  of  singing 
In  a  twilight  of  summer  fulfilled  with  the  joy 

of  the  sadness  of  tears, 
And  the  calm  of  her  face  and  the  splendid,  slow 

smile  are  as  memories  clinging 
Of  songs  and  of  silences  filling  the  distance 
of  passionate  years. 

She  moves  in  the  twilight  of  life  like  a  prayer 

in  a  heart  that  is  grieving, 
And  her  youth  is  essential  and  old  as  the 

spring  and  the  freshness  of  spring; 
And  her  eyes  watch  the  world  and  the  little, 

low  ways  of  the  sons  of  the  living 
As  the  seraph  might  watch  from  the  golden, 
grave  height  of  his  heaven-spread  wing. 

She  moves  in  the  darkness  of  Time  from  the 

centuries  large  as  her  spirit; 
From  the  magic  of  elder  religions  when  the 
epic  desires  were  strong, 


73 

And  the  old,  grave  glories  that  She,  of  the  liv 
ing,  alone  may  inherit 
Flow  back  from  the  har[  of  the  past  like  the 
notes  of  ineffable  song. 


She  moves  thro'  the  trivial  days  in  the  might  of 

the  peace  of  her  presence; 
And,  sweet  as  the  death  of  a  child,  in  the 

still  high  places  of  thought, 
Her  soul  in  the  hunger  of  life  is  appeased  in  a 

perfect  florescence, 

Apart  from  the  shadows  and  dust  that  our 
little  desires  have  sought! 


74 


III. 


Why  are  you  gone  ?  I  grope  to  find  your  hand ; 
The  light  grows  secret  as  your  tenderness; 
My  tears  that  fall  for  utter  loneliness 
Seem  sad  as  sunset  in  an  alien  land. 

Old  simple  words  that  you  could  understand 
And  only  you,  are  striving  to  possess 
My  lips  with  utterance  and  their  weariness 
Burns  with  the  fever  of  a  vain  command. 

Why  ^.j  you  gone?     The  large  winds,  sea 
ward  bound, 

Tell  of  long  journeying  in  the  endless  void. 
Why  are  you  gone?     I  strain  to  catch  the 

sound 

Of  footsteps,  watch  to  see  the  dark  destroyed 
Before    your    lustrous    ringers    that    would 

creep 
Over  my  eyes  and  give  me  strength  to  sleep ! 


75 


IV. 


Pour  down  thy  hair  between  the  world  and  me ! 
Between  myself  and  my  exhausted  soul 
Spread,   in  the  dreadful  vistas   where  my 

goal 

Saddens  and  fails,  thy  love's  euthanasy ! 
Fold  me  away  from  Time  and  let  me  be 
Silent  and  ceased  from  bitterness,  be  thou 
Tacit  as  childhood  and  thine  ivory  brow 
Thoughtless,  and  be  thou  tender  utterly! 
Strength,  give  me  strength  to  spare  the  futile 

tears ! 

Give  me  the  consciousness  of  something 
proved :  k 

Faith,  wisdom,  personal  and  briefly  true. 
I  sift  the  scant  earned  knowledge  of  my  years 
Like  dust  between  my  hands,  and  all  I  loved 
And  hoped  and  dreamed  dissolves  and  blends 
to  you ! 


76 
V. 


She  turned  the  falling  light  to  fire, 
Dull  fire  throughout  her  sombre  hair; 

It  seemed  She  phrased  the  world's  desire, 

Desire  that  woke  with  fervent  prayer 
Thrills  of  a  secret  wonder  everywhere. 

\ 

Her  eyes  caught  splendours  from  the  sun, 
Vague  airs  grew  warm  about  her  face, 
She  saw  the  fire-stained  ripples  run 

And  sing  to  sleep  the  smouldering  space 
Of  sunset  and  sink  whispering  on  her  trace. 

Height  over  height  the  skies  caught  fire: — 

She  watched  the  red  contagion  flow, 
The  wide,  wild  wings  of  flame  aspire 

Till  heaven  uplifted  seemed  to  grow 
A  huge,  domed  sapphire  paved  with  crimson 
snow. 


77 

Her  lips  were  still  and  marvellous, 
But,  like  a  lute  whose  silence  sings, 

Her  hand  fell  warm  in  mine  and  thus 

Told  me  imperishable  things : 
She  held  my  senses  as  a  perfume  clings. 

My  mind  was  like  an  ancient  town 

Of  shadows  carved  in  moonlight,  there, 

Like  dreams  thro'  latticed  casements  blown, 

The  twilight  of  her  endless  hair 
Brought  stately  visions,  sweet  and  sad  and  fair. 

Along  the  towers  and  walls  of  thought 
They   hung  bright   banners   flown   with 

song, 
The  crooked,  unlitten  byways  caught 

Their  fires,  and,  as  they  passed  along, 
My  dull,  wild  heart  woke  strangely  and  was 
strong. 

So  fire  fell  back  from  sky  to  sky, 

Night  deepened  down  the  purple  sea : 
She  turned  her  solemn  eyes  and  I, 

In  wonder  and  in  certainty, 
Still  touched  her  hand  and  still  it  sung  to  me. 


7S 


VI. 


Thy  breast  is  stainless  as  a  star,  thy  hand 
Is  calm  and  white  and  slow  and  them  dost 

come 

Sweet  as  a  long-remembered  song  of  home 
Heard  thro'  the  twilight  of  an  alien  land. 

Thine  eyes  are  pure  and  still,  they  understand 
More  than  our  thoughts  surmise,  and  stately 

dreams 

Hover  about  thee  and  thy  presence  seems 
Calm  with  a  ceaseless  custom  of  command. 

With  memories  of  thy  face  the  ways  of  time 
Are  splendid,  and  my  hours  divinely  stirred 
With  tremor  and  silence  as  of  unshed  tears. 

Thou  dost  resume,  as  tho'  the  sea's  sublime 
Music  were  uttered  in  a  single  word, 
The  warm  magnificence  of  earlier  years. 


79 


VII. 

O  murmur  and  passionate  silence  of  to-night ! 
Earth  of  sublime  arrival ! — Let  there  creep, 
Like  music  thro'  the  muffled  gloom  of  sleep> 
Tremours  of  Life's  imperishable  might, 
Whether  from  airs  that  range  the  steep  starred 

height 

Of  heaven,  or  where  the  delicate  dew  is  deep 
On  grass  and  flowers,  or  where  the  bird-cries 

leap 
Loud  down  the  pathways  mute  and  bare  with 

light. 
Fabric  of  night,  O  easeful  rest,  O  airs 

Kissing  Her  cheek,  O  flowers  that  feel  H>r 

feet, 

O,  Life,  O  earth's  impetuous  utterance! — 
We  stand  to-night  the  fit  and  faithful  heirs 
To  Life's  inheritance, — the  power,  the  sweet 
Strong    motive,    and    the    Soul's    ecstatic 
trance ! 


so 


VIII. 

Star  of  the  sumptuous  dusk  and  silent  air, 
Thou  loveliest  child  and  latest-born  of  night, 
Jewel  that  binds  the  solemn  brows  of  light 
Swept  by  its  lustre  of  luxurious  hair; 

O  star  of  sundawn  like  a  thread  of  prayer 
Weaved  thro'  the  fabric  of  a  song  of  bright 
Echoes  and  passionate  notes  of  life's  de 
light  :— 

O  throbbing  heart  of  heaven,  unstained  and 
bare ! — 

Thou,  in  thy  twilight,  art  as  tho'  her  hand 
Dawned  thro'  the  glamour  of  a  gorgeous 

dream ; 
And  as  to  me  her  loveliness  is  shed 

Thro'  depths  of  ancient  time,  I  see  thee  stand 
Exalted  and  thro'  endless  space  thy  beam 
Fall  pure  and  steadfast  on  the  world  I  tread. 


.  ix. 


She  moves  beside  the  leaping  sea, 

Along  the  beaches  fledged  with  foam; 

The  winds  go  seaward  wearily, 

The  waves  seem  children  straying  home. 

The  golden  breath  of  day  retires 
Between  the  crimson  lips  of  cloud, 

She  seems,  amid  the  smouldering  fires, 
Like  starlight  thro'  a  burning  shroud. 

I  say  "The  toiling  sea  is  old, 

"The  function  lasts,  the  form  is  change; 
"Yon  wave  that  falls  in  splintered  gold 

"In  every  drop  is  fresh  and  strange. 

"Thine  eyes  are  deep  as  fluent  pools 
"Of  starlight — Yet  despite  of  thee 

"The  world  despairs  of  death — O  fools, 
"Behold  the  fresh  and  stainless  sea ! 


"The  sea  that  felt  the  loveliest  far 
"And  eldest  God  of  earth  transpire, 

"Her  flesh  more  radiant  than  a  star, — 
"The  sea  is  young  and  cannot  tire! 

"The  myriad  waters  run  in  ways 

"Where  moved  a  million  tides  before, 

"So  you  aspire  thro'  all  my  days 

"The  same  yet  strange  for  evermore!" 


n. 


The  sunset  spins  its  splendid  skein, 
The  sea-birds  pass  with  fearless  eye, 

The  daylight  falls  in  golden  rain 
To  gardens  of  a  vaster  sky. 

I  say :  "Like  some  sonorous  bell, 

"Flame-forged  to  call  for  war  or  prayer, 

"Debased  to  chime  a  vulgar  spell 

"And  phrase  the  pain  of  vulgar  care, — 

"So  they,  for  whom  their  lies  suffice, 
"Who  fear  the  splendid  task  of  love, 
"Who  choose  the  world  and  pay  the  price, 
dead, — their  lives  are  proof  thereof ! 


83 

"But  now  they  seem  as  something  gone 
"A  long,  long  while,  and  I  may  stand 

"And  hear  the  calm  sea-monotone, 

"And  watch  thy  face  and  touch  thy  hand." 

in. 

The  stars  come  few  and  full  as  tears, 
The  dark  absorbs  her  fold  on  fold; 

She  seems  a  song  of  earlier  years, 
A  myth  the  lips  of  heroes  told. 

She  turns,  the  twilight  clothes  her  shape, 
The  sands  she  treads  seem  moist  with  blood ; 

Measured  and  low  from  cape  to  cape 
Sea-music  thrills  the  evening's  mood. 

I  say  "The  wondering-up  of  love, 
"The  float  of  incense  and  the  gloom 

"That  warmed  of  old  thine  altars,  move 
"About  thee  like  a  dull  perfume. 

"And  like  a  ship  of  glimmering  pearl, 
"My  heart  adventures  far  to  sea : 

*The  urge  of  wind,  the  breakers  curl 
"Seem  promptings  of  infinity. 


84 


"Day  dies  and  night  along  my  trace, 
"Thy  hair,  the  gloom  and  glow  thereof, 

"Surrounds  me,  and  thy  solemn  face 
"Is  dawn  across  the  seas  of  love! 


"Behold  thou  art  like  sleepy  wine 
"In  all  my  sense,  and  now  at  last 

"Thy  human  hours  of  life  are  mine 
"And  all  thy;  strong,  sonorous  past !", 


85 
X. 


Ours  is  the  day  of  soul-despair, 

The  glimmering  faith,  the  scanted  sight ; 

But  thine  the  dim,  deserted  night, 
And,  dark  as  moonlight  thro'  thy  hair, 
The  stately,  solitary  air. 

Ours  are  the  years  of  foolish  strife, 
Of  small  desires  and  smaller  gain; 
But  thine,  beyond  the  toil  and  pain, 
Inert,  unstirred  by  death  or  life, 
The  changeless  Truth  that  proves  us  vain. 

Ours  are  the  trivial  joys,  the  tears, 
The  toil  whereat  our  lives  are  priced; 
But  thine,  with  nothing  sacrificed, 
The  harvest  of  unnumbered  years, 
The  silence  where  the  soul  appears. 

Ours  is  a  short,  sad  sentience,  ours 
Brief  time  and  then  forgetful  sleep; 
But  round  thy  face  thy  memories  keep 
Strange  vigil,  and  the  lotos-flowers 
Of  Egypt  scent  thy  living  hours. 


86 

Ours  are  the  life  and  death  that  seem, 
Ours  is  the  race,  but  thine  the  goal, 
And  thine  the  calm,  unhindered  soul 
That  holds  the  dreamer  and  the  dream 
As  notes  in  one  harmonious  theme. 

We  damn  and  praise,  we  crown  the  few 
.With  power  and  fame — a  fading  wreath ; 
In  thine  alembic  Life  and  Death 
Unite :  beyond  our  partial  view 
Thy  calm  eyes  know  that  all  is  true ! 

Thy  vision  sphered  to  vaster  skies, 

Thy  breast  that  keeps,  serene  and  strong, 
The  pulse  of  earth's  eternal  song, 

Thy  hands  that  stir  not  and  are  wise, 

Thy  face  of  epic  centuries, 

Thy  soul  that  sees  beyond  the  tomti, 
Thy  faith  of  wise  and  perfect  love, 
Thy  heart  that  time  is  lyric  of — 
They  know  thro'  life  and  death  we  come 
Thee-ward  like  children  straying  home. 


87 


XI. 


Thine  is  the  silence  of  a  night  of  mist, 

Thine  is  the  wonder  of  a  night  of  stars, 
Thine  is  the  body,  a  solemn  eucharist, 
And  thine  the  face,  the  eyes  no  shadow 

mars 
Save  of  thy  hair  the  twilight  pale  as  amethyst. 

Thine  is  the  voice,  phrased  echo  of  the  sea, 
And  thine  the  mood  of  statues  black  with 

moon, 

Staring,  inert,  with  eyes  too  tense  to  see, 
Eastward    thro'    deserts    desperate    with 

noon; 

Thine  is  the  day-spring  of  the  world's  eter 
nity. 

Thy  breast  is  perfumed  of  forgotten  flowers, 
Thy  dreams  and  destinies  are  old  as  youth 
That  thrills,  in  chorus  of  memorial  hours, 
The    longing   and   the    laughter   of   thy 

mouth ; 

Thy  soul  is  proud  and  calm  with  long-immor 
tal  powers. 


85 

Thine  is  the  portent  of  a  deathless  thing, 

Thine  is  the  passion  of  a  mortal  change, 
Thine  is  the  love — Ah  God ! — to  cleave  and 

cling, 

And  thine  the  lover,  violent  and  strange, 
To  tune  the  lyre  for  thee,  despair  and  break  the 

string, 

Lest  song  turn  discord  tried  beyond  its 
range ! 


XII. 

Thine  is  the  joy  of  life's  transcendent  hours, 

Thine  is  the  grief  of  childish  memories, 
*  Thy  footsteps  seem  to  fall  on  fragrant  flowers, 
Strewn  for  the  feet  of  grave  Divinities; 
Thine  eyes  recall  forgotten  pieties. 

Deep  in  thy  breast  the  sacred  perfume  lingers, 
Breathed  from  the  lotos  that  were  wont  to 

hang 

Rose  o'er  the  sistrum  in  thy  rhythmic  fingers, 
When  thro'  the  shrine's  mysterious  twilight 

rang 

Thy  voice  and  all  the  unseen  respondents 
sang. 

Thine  are  the  powers  of  Gods  that  now  are 

nameless, 

Still  on  thy  face  there  seems  to  fall  the  glow 
Of  fires  that  flared  on  shrines  for  ages  flame- 
less, 
Still  where  the  diadem  pressed  thy  faultless 

brow 
Heavy  with  gems,  the  dimples  linger  now. 


90 

Age  after  age  the  myriads  live  and  perish, 
Their's  ;the  harsh  conflict  and  the  sordid 

gain; 

Thine  is  the  wisdom  souls  alone  may  cherish, 
Thine  is  the  truth  that  heals  the  essential 

pain 

Of  time  and  change  and  makes  death's  con 
quest  vain. 

Life  is  a  spark  the  night  of  death  encloses, 
Somewhere  is  sunrise  if  the  soul  is  sooth; 

And  thou  in  life's  brief  hour  of  thorns  and 

roses 

Show  us  the  fashion  of  a  deathless  yottfh, 
The  solemn  portent  of  a  final  truth. 


ISHTAR. 


THE  SONNETS  OF  ISHTAR. 
I. 

I  am  the  world's  imperishable  desire; 
Life  is  because  I  will,  for  hope  of  me 
Life  is,  nor  all  the  dark  depths  of  the  sea 
Could  quench  mine  eyes'  light  nor  my  body's 
fire. 

Fresh  hyacinth  and  the  violent  rose  suspire, 
The  black  clod  breaks  to  green  eternally, 
Sap  thrills  to  parturition  the  naked  tree, — 
Of  all  things  living  I  only  cannot  tire. 

I  am  the  world's  interminable  sin; 

Yea !  In  my  power  and  lust  beyond  control, 
Things  mortal  wage  the  war  of  life  and  win. 

For  me  the  slave  defies  the  master's  rod, 

And  while  the  antique  pride  swells  within 

his  soul 
The  man  reclaims  his  liberty  of  God! 


II. 


My  face  lives  always  in  the  quenchless  light. 
Frail  gold  of  twilight  burns  across  my  breast, 
The  red  dusk  girds  me  and  my  limbs  are 

pressed 
In  warm,  wan  shadows  deepening  down  to 

night. 

My  hair,  red  gold  on  brows  of  faultless  white, 
Inspires  earth's  children  to  my  fatal  quest ; 
.Youth's  passionate  face  in  mortal  hope  of 

rest 
Grows  blind  against  me,  wearying  of  my 

might. 
With  ravenous  lips  men  scourge  my  lustrous 

flesh 

And  crowd  the  quivering  dusk  with  name 
less  sin; 
Death  takes  them,  still  insatiate,  from  my 

mesh. 

Viewless,  my  feet  pash  down  the  one  who  dies, 
While,  sprung  aloft  from  earth  he  festers  in, 
I  watch  the  last-born  laughing  in  mine  eyes ! 


III. 


Once  was  my  name  as  fire,  and  once  my  wine 
Flushed  in  the  veins  of  youth,  and  once  the 

strong, 

The  wise,  the  lyric,  leaped  beneath  my  thong 
Of  love  and  hailed  me  human  and  divine ! 
Mine  was  the  world's   confessed   desire  and 

mine 

The  echoing  thunder  of  the  seas  of  song, 
Priests,  virgins,  youths — a  florid,  sumptuous 

throng — 

Gave  me  luxurious  service  at  my  shrine ! 
Now  tho',  bereft,  I  seem  perchance  as  one 
Smothered  in  night  whose  memory  keeps  the 

flush, 

The  fire  and  huge  transcendence  of  the  sun, 
Still,  in  the  apostate  world,  my  fight  I  know 
Is  won,  and  still  the  lips  of  manhood  crush, 
And  still  the  pained  blood  throbs  thro'  limbs 
of  snow ! 


96 


IV. 


For  me,  the  eldest  and  the  loveliest  God, 
For  me  and  for  my  equal  happiness 
The  woman  aches  with  sweet  maternal  stress, 
The  slow  seed  breaks  beneath  the  reeking 

sod. 
For  me  the  strong,  swift  feet  of  dawn  are 

shod 
With  fire,  for  me  the  flowers'  frail  petals 

press 

Fearless  and  faithful,  and  warm  winds  ca 
ress 

The  violet  sea-ways  where  of  old  I  trod. 
For  me  the  long,  resounding  years  return 
With  gradual  seasons,  and  the  stately  sun 
Shepherds  thro'  void  infinity  his  brood ; 
And  only  thro'  my  knowledge  man  may  turn, 
To  larger  consciousness  the  soul  has  won, 
Leaving  his  outworn  body  for  my  food. 


97 


AD  SERVAM. 

SAPPHICS. 


Day  through,  night  through  rest  never  gave  its 

guerdon, 

Life  unfolded  never  its  heart's  rejoicing, 
Sleep    stood    wrapped    in    visions    of    endless 

waking, 

Pale  and  relentless. 


Dawn  spread  fire,  the  moon  with  its  meagre 
twilight 

Died,  the  trees  grew  full  of  fresh  sound  and 
shadow ; 

Bit  with  flame  the  implacable  night,  the  sleep 
less 

Shrivelled  like  parchment. 


Day   with   dumb,   white  hours   like   scourges 

smote  me, 
Drop  by  drop  day's  river  of  sunlight  drenched 

me, 
Sight    and    sound    day's    weariness    wrought 

upon  me, 

Wrought  as  with  iron. 


So  was  night  shed  silent  as  sifted  ashes, 
Dim  and  sweet  the  invisible  spring  suspired, 
Voiced  with  song,  earth's  passion  of  parturi 
tion 

Toiled  in  the  twilight. 


Over  earth  the  shadows  were  shod  with  silence, 

Night  descended  ample  and  rapt  and  faultless; 

Still  was  rest  withholden  and,  pale  and  lidless, 

Sleep  overglanced  me. 


99 


Sleep! — Dark    page   unlettered    in   life's    sad 

volume — 

Not  for  me  thy  cession  of  ceased  remembrance, 

Not  for  me  thy  dreamless,  impassive  mercy — 

Thou  hast  denied  me! 


Fierce  as  fever  blurred  with  fantastic  fancy, 
Night  through,  Life,  with  resonant  lips  con 
vulsive, 

Violent  hands  and  eyes  of  incessant  silence, 
Smote  and  enslaved  me. 


8 


All  my  flesh  cried :  "Symbol  of  starved  desire, 
"Pain  of  all  pains  weariest,  thou  hast  cursed  me 
"Now  with  tears  and  now  more  cruel  with 
laughter, 

"Hurt  and  caressed  me !" 


JOO 


Then  I  cried  to  Death  with  exceeding  anguish, 
Prayed  her  thus — "O,  Angel  of  tender  wis 
dom! 

"Wrap  my  brows  in  infinite  night,  in  final 
"Folds  of  thy  cere-cloth  1" 


10 


Then  dislimned  Life's  image;  the  brawl  and 

babble 

Ceased ;  yea,  Life,  the  implacable  Life  relented, 
Turned  and,  mute  as  tho'  to  disclose  its  mean 
ing, 

Leaned  to  caress  me. 


ii 


Then  I  saw  the  shadowless  eyes,  the  scarlet 
Lips  of  laughter,  lust  and  of  little  whispers, 
Whispers     low     and     languid     with     fierce 
dominion — 

Life  was  translated! 


12 


Cried  I  then :  "O,  pity  for  me,  O  mighty 
"Gods  of  altars  white  as  the  limbs  of  lovers"— 
Then  She  laughed  and  suddenly,  burned  and 
broken, 

Soul  was  defeated ! 


13 

Thro'  me  smote  her  silence  of  stolen  secrets, 
Dear,  too  dear  for  words  and  too  sweet  for 

music, 

Till  She  grew,  in  subtle  and  grievous  longing, 
Fervent  as  bloodshed. 


14 

Then  I  saw  the  glamour  of  limbs  uncovered, 
Saw  the  fresh,  frail  curves  of  her  body  broken, 
Saw  the  mouth,  the  eyes  everlasting  vision 
Moist  with  her  passion. 


J02 


Soul  was  spent,  flesh  severed  with  sharp  de 
sire, — 

Flame  on  flame  the  print  of  her  paces  smote 
me, 

Yea !  the  song  and  sway  of  her  eager  body 
Surged  in  my  senses. 


16 


Long  I  lay  immobile,  in  monstrous  struggle, 
Endless    waking,     weariness    tense    as    harp 

strings, 
While  the  sobbing  pulse  of  her  blood  against 

me 

Beat  thro'  my  body. 


Briefly  then  I  knew  why  the  sleepless  demon 
Li  f e,  endured  with  sorrow  and  sound  incessant, 
Knew  why  all  the  veins  of  my  body  filtered 
Wine  for  her  thirsting. 


*03 


18 

Even  Death,  the  goal  and  delight  of  living, 
Wrapped  with  earth's  thick  shadows,  the  sea's 

dense  silence, 

Death,  I  knew,  as  Life  in  the  day  and  night 
time, 

Paled  and  grew  sentient. 

19 

She,  I  knew,  beneath  my  unlifting  eyelids, 
Dark  with  dust  or  blind  with  the  weight  of 

waters, 

She  could  still,  with  fiery  fingers,  sever 
Death  from  its  shadow ! 

20 

Yea!  the  cool,  kind  fingers  of  Death  would 
kindle ; 

Sleep  is  scared  and  darkness  too  weak  to  wall 
me; 

Naught  conceals  my  soul  from  her  soul's  de 
sire, 

Slave  She  enslaves  me! 


*04 


21 


So  that  now  my  body  and  soul  in  grievous 
Love  cry  out — "O  God,  I  would  choose  her 

nervous 

Fierce  caress,  tho*  even  the  wings  of  slumber 
Closed  to  enfold  me!" 


22 


Tho'  my  sleepless  hours  like  fire  and  fever 
Burn  my  brain  and  all  of  my  body  suffers, 
Tho'  my  soul  is   famished,   my  heart  leaps 
out  in 

supplication; 


Cries — "O  thou,  Implacable  Aphrodite, 
"Thou,  whose  feet  flow  flame  and  whose  laugh 
ter  lightens 

"Down  the  trackless  ways  of  the  heart  where 
bright  blood 

"Burns  on  thy  traces ! — 


105 


24 

'Thou,  of  Gods  most  pitiless,  sumptuous,  san 
guine — • 

"When  I  burn  out  body  and  soul  and  perish, 
"Let  my  cinders,  sifted  thro*  some  sad  twilight, 
"Fall  in  Her  pathway! 


"Where  Her  feet  fall,  yea!  and  beneath  Her 

paces 

"Let  me  lie  in  dust  and  with  dust  be  mingled, 

"Thrilled  as  now  to  feel  of  Her  flesh  the  burden 

"Bruise  me  in  passage! 


"There,  tho'  stamped  and  scattered,  Her  feet 
could  thrill  me, 

"Yea!  till  flowers  from  out  of  my  dust  trans 
pired 

"Still  to  lure  Her  fancy  and  still  to  feel  Her 
"Mine  as  she  crushed  them!" 


J07 


TANNHAUSER  TO  VENUS. 

I  have  learned  the  inevitable  destinies 
By  sheer  endurance  of  thy  careless  love! 
Yet  with  a  human  and  so  needful  hope, 
A  desperate  guess,  I  dare  confront  thy  will 
And  task  with  doubt  thy  flushed  divinity : 
Hear  me!    O  Goddess,  hear  my  last  surmise! 

I  have  watched  thy  face  and  seen  the  seasons 

pass, 

And  now  I  know  that  memory  cannot  be 
Where  death  is  not  nor  any  mortal  change. 
Thou  art  immortal,  therefore  all  thy  life 
Is  now, — the  hours  go  by  and  leave  no  trace! 
O  monstrous  thought!     Would  I  could  ask 

thee  where 

And  how  they  fare,  the  insatiable  men, 
Lovers  of  thine  whose  blood  besmeared  thy 

feet, 
Whose  wild  hearts  perished  as  in  fire,  whose 

bones 


JOS 

Gleam  white  as  starlight  in  the  paths  of  time! 
O  where's  it  passed,  the  strong  processional, 
The  young  men  and  young  women  pale  as  fire, 
Life's  desperate  mariners  who  glimpsed  thee 

forth— 

Pharos  that  lamped  the  starless  night  of  time — 
And   sought   thee   even   on   death's   engulfing 

seas  ? — 
Tell  me  of  them!     Thy  brows  are  pure  of 

thought ! 

Yet  had  thine  epic  lovers  of  yesterday 
Lips  and  strong  hands  more  fierce  than  even 

are  mine; 

Their  violent  will  and  weak  humanity 
Suffered  as  mine  to  feel  thy  deathless  youth ! 
Then  tell   me — for,   by  heaven,   my  extreme 

plight 

Lies  bare  before  thee — if  such  men  who  strode 
Young  in  the  young  world  are  lapsed  away 
Body  and  soul  leaving  no  trace  at  all, 
Then  where  for  me,  for  me  who  once  forswore 
My  sweet  Lord  Christ,  the  strong  and  stainless 

God, 

Is  triumph  or  hope  or  any  tenderness? 
Am  I  more  mighty  than  so  much  of  time, 
So  mighty  and  so  wilful  of  my  cause 


J09 

That,  by  extreme  desire,  I  may  contrive 

To  give  thee  mortal  memory  and  pain  and 

tears, 

Feel  thy  heart  falter  and  reduce  to  death 
The  fashion  of  thy  memorable  flesh? 
Is  this  my  only  hope?    Certain  it  is 
My  whole  life,  harnessed  to  thine  endless  task, 
Toils  without  recompense,  a  merest  tool 
Serving  the  vast  monotony  of  fate; 
Certain  it  is  that  through  eternal  time 
No  death  can  make  the  sight  of  my  dazed  eyes 
Grow  bland  or  cool  my  ringers  of  thy  feel ! 
And  therefore,  drifted  in  the  dreadful  past, 
I  shall  be  left  a  derelict  on  the  shores 
Of  thine  oblivion  that  bear,  I  know, 
Wreckage  of  all  the  years  and  of  all  men ! 
Certain  it  is — unless — O  give  me  power 
And  light !    For  in  the  midnight  of  despair 
I  seem  to  glimpse  the  dawn  of  a  huge  hope 
That  fires  a  pathway  to  my  utmost  goal ! 
Not  thine  the  power !  I  go  from  thee  to  me ! 
Mine  is  the  task — to  teach  my  human  soul 
The  vastness  of  the  immortal  mood  and  thus 
Lift  my  fierce  life  to  immortality ! 
O  hope  great  beyond  all  hope  yet  not  vain ! 
Haply  I  fail — yet  I  have  known  thy  love 


no 

And  served  with  life  the  soul's  divinest  end 
Since  the  extreme  of  all  things  leads  to  truth. 
Therefore  I  am  content.    Lift  up  thy  hands 
And  pour  thy  golden  cataract  of  hair 
Over    my    face,    then    kiss    me    through    the 

coils ! — 

The  frailty  of  my  heart  that  does  thee  wrong, 
Memory,  and  grief  for  human  joy  and  pain 
Shall  cease.     Behold  me  fit  to  bear  thy  love! 
I  will  no  more  desire  the  sea-wind,  cool 
At  sunrise,  nor  the  lesser  joys  than  Thou : 
The  clasp  of   friends  and  the  low  lights  of 

home! 


TWILIGHT. 

Deep  in  thy  lap  I  lay  my  head, 

Deep  in  my  soul  thy  words  resound; 

Thy  lips  where  mine  so  lately  bled 
Gleam  like  a  wound. 

Now,  in  the  sad  reluctant  light 

The  passionate  silence  of  thy  mood, 

I  feel  thy  robe's  perfume,  and  night 
And  solitude. 

Till  in  the  solitude  I  feel 

The  breaking  heart,  the  dazzled  brain 
Pulse  with  a  longing  tense  as  steel 

And  more  than  pain. 

More  than  all  pain  and  all  delight, 
All  laughter  and  convulsive  tears, 

More  than  all  sleep  in  all  the  night 
Of  endless  years. 


Thy  robe's  perfume  is  deep  and  warm, 
The  dusk  is  deep  and  sad  and  low : 

I  cannot  save  thee  from  love's  harm 
Nor  let  thee  go. 

I  have  nor  strength  nor  will  to  save 
Thy  life  from  my  desire  or  me. 

I  hold  thee,  Mistress  still  and  Slave 
Eternally ! 


SONG. 

I  am  the  soul  of  desire, 

The  pleasure,  the  passion,  the  prayer; 
O,  when  shall  my  love  for  thee  tire  ? 

Beloved,  thou  art  fearfully  fair 
And  I  am  the  soul  of  desire ! 

I  am  the  soul  of  desire, 

I  call  with  the  tones  of  the  sea, 
With  the  infinite  yearn  of  the  sea. 
I  am  thrilled  with  my  love  as  a  lyre 
Is  thrilled  with  the  songs  that  transpire 
For  love,  and  I  thirst  as  a  fire 

For  thee! 

For  thy  indolent  hands  and  thy  hair — 
O  beloved !  thou  art  fearfully  fair 
And  I  am  the  soul  of  desire ! 


I  am  the  soul  of  desire, 

O  where  shall  I  find  thee? 
My  love  shall  consume  thee  entire, 
My  passion  shall  bind  thee! 

For  a  day  and  a  night  and  a  morrow, 

Thy  body  and  soul  shall  be  mine 
Till  the  laughter  of  love  and  the  sorrow 
Are  shed  thro'  thy  senses  like  wine. 
Where  thy  bosom  is  bare 
My  love  shall  suspire; 

Thou  art  fair,  O  beloved,  thou  art  fearfully 

fair! 
And  I  am  the  soul  of  desire ! 


»J5 


VARIATIONS. 


it? 

SONNETS. 
I. 

Strong  saturation  of  sea!    O  widely  flown, 
Far  winds  of  fall,  your  litanies  of  pain 
Moan  like  the  music  of  a  wild  refrain 
Heard  thro'  the  midnight  of  a  feudal  town ! 
Young  night  is  lipped  with  jasper  where  the 

blown 

Burden  of  evening  lights  intensely  wane, 
And,  shuddering  seaward  from  the  tawny 

plain, 
Vague  fold  on  fold  the  enormous  dark  comes 

down. 
Gusty  and  fervid  as  the  sleepless  sea 

The  passionate  fancies  of  a  formless  fear 
Spring  in  my  nervous  brain  like  monstrous 

flowers ; 
The  night,  the  wind-chant  work  their  will  of 

me, 
And  thoughts  like  death-bells  echoing  far 

and  near, 
Toll  for  life's  lost,  irrevocable  hours. 


ii. 


How  many  a  life  must  thou  the  journey  keep, 
O  soul,  thro'  sexual  seasons  of  the  years  ? 
O  heart,  how  many  a  harvest  of  thy  tears 
Shall    life's    sharp   sword   of   un fulfillment 
reap? 

The  breath  of  dawn   shall   blow — haply  with 

tears ! — 

How  oft,  O  heart,  O  soul,  before  the  deep 
Darkness  and  still  eternity  of  sleep 
Bring  natural  justice  for  life's  long  arrears? 

Ah!  when  my  rose  of  life  is  ripe  to  fall, 
Pray  God  I  sink  thro'  gardens  of  the  sun 
Till  the  dead  fingers  of  oblivion 

Constrain  my  heart,  and  there  lie  over  me 
The  tideless  waters  and  the  eventual 
Darkness  of  death's  unlit,  unlifting  sea! 


III. 


Come  home  to  me  at  last !    Come  home  to  me ! 
Bring  me  thy  youth  of  tears  and  great  de 
sires; 

Frail  round  thy  tired  head  the  music  tires, 
The  music  shed  between  the  stars  and  sea ! 
While  still  thy  youth  is  echoing  with  its  free 
Love-songs  resounding  like  a  storm  of  lyres, 
Come   with    thy   deeds    and   dreams; — and 

thro'  the  fires 

Of  wisdom  sift  the  ash  of  memory. 
Come  home   to   me  at   last!     Life  whispers 

"Come!" 

Yea !  thro'  the  mist  of  passions  sad  with  loss, 
Strong  in  the  sumptuous  dusk,  the  light  of 

home, 
The  light  of  soul  where  thou  must  journey, 

lays, 
While  spring  is  sweet  in  all  the  old  dear 

ways, 
A  splendour  and  a  sacrament  across ! 


J20 


IV. 


Hush  child !    Be  still  and  give  thy  fingers  rest, 
Thine  eyes  the  darkness,  and  thy  lips  that 

press 

Hard  on  the  lips  of  life  with  fierce  caress, 
Ease  from  their  hunger  and  thy  guidele^s 

quest. 

Ask  of  the  vacant  eyes  and  stirless  breast 
Of  life's  last  angel,  pale  Forgetfulness, 
Peace  and  release  from  thought's  eternal 

stress : 

She,  of  life's  violent,  fervent  Gods,  is  best. 
Peace  child!     Beneath  her  hand  the   fretful 

flame 
Of   long   desire   grows    frail   and   faint   as 

dream : 

The  immediate  life  is  alien  to  despair. 
Held  on  her  heart  seem  life  and  death  the  same, 
And  nothing  is  at  all  and  all  things  seem, 
And  if  life  dies  thou  shalt  not  even  care! 


V. 


Then  cried  the  song  of  Life:     "The  flowers 

that  fall, 

"Spendthrift  of  perfume,  shall  return  again 
"Fed  by  the  tireless  earth  and  fragrant  rain : 
"Far  down  the  glimmering  sea  the  musical 
"Lips  of  the  dawn  repeat  their  clarion  call ; 
"Always  the  heart  shall  kindle  to  regain 
"Love's  young  desire  whose  very  strength  is 

pain, 

"For  life  is  love  and  love  is  best  of  all !" 
Then  breathed  an  elder  music :  "I  am  peace ! 
"Peace  of  the  silent  soul,  sphered  in  such  wise 
"That  no  thing  lives  or  dies,  is  pleased  or  sad 
"In  me,  where  hope  and  prayer  and  struggle 

cease! 
"Wise  with  my  light  thy  calm  and  steadfast 

eyes 
"Beholding  death  shall  not  be  even  glad !" 


J22 


DEATH  IN  YOUTH. 

Thy  lips  grow  cold  against  the  lips  of  death, 
And  peace  shall   come: — be  mild  and  un 
afraid  ! 

Then,  in  the  silence,  like  a  tender  breath, 
Life's  bloom  of  fever  on  thy  cheeks  shall 

fade 

As  now  the  sunset's  weariest  saffron  slips 
Over  the  moveless  pallor  of  thy  lips. 

What  tho'  the  lips  of  love  are  wet  with  tears  ? 

Life  was,  thou  sayest,  magnificent  and  mine ! 

Youth  was  possessed  of  dreams,  the  abundant 

years 

Thrilled  like  the  freshness  of  a  native  wine! 
Behold!     The  hope  of  life  is  death,  the 

goal 

Death  that  at  last  leads  outward  to  the 
soul. 


S23 

Haply  forgetfulness  shall  come.    Behold! 

Day  is  a  dream  that  haunts  the  elder  night. 
Still  is  the  earth  so  young  and  thou  so  old, 
Mute  with  thy  memories  flashed  like  shafts 

of  light 
Thro'  rain-swept  days  forlorn  with  beaten 

bells, 
Thy  memories  near  and  real  as  miracles. 

As  Life  is  stern  be  merciful  and  mild, 

Solemn  with  joy  as  Life  laughs  loud  with 

pain, 

Silent  as  life  is  shrill. — O  dying  child, 
Be  all  life  is  not,  then  was  life  not  vain 
Since  soul  proves  victor  when  the  fight  is 

fought 

And  peace  returns,  profound  and  void  of 
thought. 

Banish  the  keen  regret,  the  foolish  tears, 
Salt  on  the  kiss  that  burned  thy  longing 

mouth ! 

Wisdom  shall  soon  be  perfect :  all  thy  years 
Harvest  blown  ashes  of  the  gods  of  youth. 
Now  shall  thy  grief  refrain,  thy  passions 

cease : 
Silence  has  come  and  in  the  silence  peace ! 


124 

Thou  must  forget  or  else  'twere  vain  to  die, 
Death  with  thy  memories  is  not  death  at 

all; 

Passion  and  pain  and  pleasure,  thou  and  I, 
Life  and  its  longings,  must,  beyond  recall, 
Cease  or  unite  or  merge  and  death  must 

come 

Like  seaward  wind  that  takes  the  rain-drop 
home. 

Death  shall  forget  tho'  life's  immortal  power 
That  gave  thee  strength  to  bear  thy  human 

fate 
Suffer   and    strive.      Thro'   death   the  mystic 

flower 

Of  soul  expands  until  thy  youth's  wise  hate 
Of  life  has  utterly  passed  in  love  away, 
.While  death  prepares  the  spiritual  day. 


125 


LULLABY. 

Sleep,  ah !  sleep  in  the  light  of  the  moon, 
Sleep,  ah !  sleep  in  the  shadow  of  night, 

For  the  hour  of  waking  is  soon,  how  soon ! 
And  swift  are  the  feet  of  light ! 

Sleep,  ah !  sleep  in  the  light  of  the  stars, 
Sleep  in  the  lull  of  the  viewless  airs, 

For  you  wake  to  the  world  and  its  pitiful  wars, 
The  flesh  and  its  sordid  cares. 

Sleep,  ah !  sleep  in  the  hush  of  the  heart, 
Dreamless,  forget  the  return  of  strife, 

When  the  curtains  of  shadow  are  stricken  apart 
On  the  pitiless  drama  of  life. 

Sleep,  ah !  sleep  in  the  light  of  the  soul, 

In  the  measureless  strength  and  the  timeless 
peace ; 

Sleep !  and  be  free  of  the  mind's  control 
In  the  prison  of  time  and  space. 


126 

Sleep,  ah !  sleep  in  the  endless  ways 
Of  the  shadow  of  Death,  in  the  cool,  kind 
earth, 

Till  the  dark  is  dissolved  in  the  golden  haze 
Of  the  Dawn  of  a  greater  birth. 

Sleep !  for  haply  a  night  will  come 

Where  laughter  is  silent  and  none  shall  weep, 
Where  the  Soul  after  infinite  travel  goes  home 

At  last  to  an  endless  sleep. 


127 


AFTER  DEATH. 

She  said : 

Where  shall  my  Soul  be  comforted, 

My  Body  be  satiated 

Since  he  is  dead  ? 

She  said : 

Since  He  is  dead 

Where  shall  my  lips  be  fed  that  blushed  and 

bled 

Against  his  lips,  and  where  my  fingers  cling, 
My  arms  enfold,  my  voice  thrill  whispering  ? 
My  slow  white  hands  shall  fling 
Over  what  secret,  where, 
The  shadow  of  my  hair? 

She  said : 

Because  the  Man  is  dead 

To  Thee  I  yield  my  soul,  Lord  God. 

I  thought  he  could  not  die 

Leaving  the  vistas  of  his  life  untrod; 


m 

I  thought  the  mere  desire  of  love  sufficed 

To  thwart  Death  utterly, 

For  this  how  gladly  soul  were  sacrificed ! 

Now  He  is  dead  I  learn  thy  litany, 

Lord  God,  and  tame  my  lyric  throat  to  prayer. 

Once,  for  his  kiss,  my  lips  were  red, 

Now  pale  with  tears  they  taste  thy  eucharist, 

And  all  my  hair  he  loved,  my  sombre  hair 

Lies  sweet  and  heavy  on  the  feet  of  Christ. 

She  said : 

Lo !  he  is  dead,  Lord  God,  my  love  is  dead ! 

Now,  leaf  by  leaf, 

Summer  is  fallen,  earth  grown  mute  and  deaf, 

And  winter  rigorous  above  his  grave. 

In  heaven  the  angels  have 

Thy  stars  for  choir  and  all  thy  sons  for  song, 

They  live  before  thy  face, 

Glad  in  the  sweet  suffusion  of  thy  peace. — 

My  love  is  dead;  Lord  God,  I  do  him  wrong, 

Where  he  lies  hid 

Lonely  beneath  his  coffin-lid, 

To  pray  thy  grace  in  heaven, 

Nor  even 

Can  I  by  thee  be  comforted 

Since  He  is  dead. 


129 

She  said  : 

Yea !  tho'  my  love  be  dead, 

I  know  that  never  sleep 

Has  shed  her  shadows  on  his  lidless  eyes ; — 

Always  I  wonder  if  the  dead  can  weep! 

The  desolate  wind  is  cold  above  his  head, 

The  wall  of  night  impervious  where  he  lies 

And  shrill  with  withered  things  that  agonize 

As  tho'  his  buried  body  changed  to  cries, 

As  tho'  he  called  to  me  and  said : 

"My  lips  are  jealous  of  the  flesh  of  Christ 

"Thy  lips  have  tasted  in  the  eucharist, 

"Yea,  of  the  heavy  strewing  of  all  thy  hair 

"On  Christ's  sad  feet! 

"My  hands  are  jealous  of  thy  sweet 

"White  fingers  cold  in  attitudes  of  prayer. 

"My  heart  is  jealous  of  thy  naked  breast, 

"Crimson  where  late  the  altar's  marble  pressed, 

"Where  once  I  took  my  rest; 

"And  in  the  violent  ways  of  love  I  trod 

"My  Soul  is  jealous  of  thy  God!" 

She  said : 

The  stars  of  heaven  are  white  witfi  song, 

The  Sons  of  God  forever  young ; 

Dark  is  my  love,  O  Lord,  my  love  is  Head ! 


J30 

Lonely  beneath  his  shroud  he  cannot  rest 

Save  where  thy  lilies  fade  against  my  breast. 

Lord!    it  would  do  him  wrong 

And  prove  me  faithless,  if  in  Heaven 

My  soul  grew  pure  and  calm  with  God; 

If,  in  the  ways  of  good  he  never  trod, 

My  heart  were  comforted. 

She  said : 

I  choose  the  seven 

Sweet  sins  of  love  instead! 

She  said : 

Summer  has  died  because  my  love  is  dead, 

Winter  is  acrid  as  his  sleepless  eyes. 

Yet  shall  the  earth  wherein  his  body  lies 

Thrill  to  the  season's  sun  and  soon  be  riven, 

Till  Life,  desire  and  dream  of  death, 

Leap  forth  and  climb  the  hills  of  heaven 

And  earth  grow  violent  with  spring 

That  shall  fling 

On  the  beating  of  her  breath 

Foam  of  fresh  flowers  to  the  stainless  sea. 

She  said : 

Like  the  eternal  spring,  eternally 

Shall  love  persist  in  my  dead  Love  and  me, 

And  Life,  the  elixir  whence  all  love  is  fed, 


131 

Shall  thrill  between  us  so  we  cannot  sever. 

Lord  God,  we  loved  once  and  forever ! 

For  both  of  us 

Love  is  more  marvellous, 

Whether  alone  beneath  the  coffin-lid 

Or  lonelier  and  more  desperate  amid 

The  glad  familiar  ways  of  earth  we  trod, 

Than  Heaven  with  all  its  stars  and  hosts  of 

song, 

With  all  thy  sons  immaculately  young, 
And  Thou  Lord  God ! 


J32 


WOMEN. 

FIRST. 

I. 

She  said :  "O  take  me !  Let  my  life  become 
"Part  of  your  pleasure.    As  the  rose  that  leaf 
"By  leaf  falls  scented  from  the  crimson  sheaf 
"You  loved,  even  so,  until  my  life  is  numb 

"And  bare  with  giving,  till  the  total  sum 
"Of  joy  my  life  contains,  to  serve  your  need 
"Is  spent,  till  all  the  music  of  my  reed 
"Is  played  to  please  you,  till  you  leave  me, 
dumb — 

"So  am  I  yours !  to  love  you  till  you  tire 

"Of  love.     I  give  so  little! — yet  the  whole: 
"The  best  and  worst  of  me,  my  body  and 
soul! 

"O  take  me !  Yours  the  nobler  part,  to  take 
"Unrecompensed  my  1  rodigal  desire 
"That  pains  me  and  ,,  ^uld  kill  me  for  your 
sake!" 


*33 


II. 


He  said :  "Enough !  I  take  you  and  repay 
"Nothing  you  give,  but  waste  your  sacrifice ; 
"I  let  your  body  and  soul  alone  suffice, 
"Your  fierce  love's  largess  lure  me  for  a  day. 

"Held  in  my  power  your  soul  shall  cease  to 

pray, 

"Your  lips  forget  their  pieties  to  entice 
"My  lips,  and  death  at  last  shall  film  with  ice 
"Your  desolate  heart  once  drained  and  cast 
away. 

"Come  to  me !  You  shall  utterly  be  turned 
"Into  my  pleasure,  till  my  satiate  sense 
"Sickens  to  see  you,  till  your  flesh  is  burned 

"Dry  in  my  service,  till  the  soul  you  staked 
"Against  a  careless  kiss  is  lost,  till  hence 
"I  drive  you,  with  the  thirst  you  nourished 
slaked  I" 


J34 


III. 


She  said :  "Thank  God !  Beloved,  I  merely  ask 
"Sufferance  for  love  and  me.     My  soul  ?     I 

stake 

"It,  swift  to  lose  the  bauble  for  your  sake, 
"To  spill  the  liquor  as  I  break  the  flask !" 
She  held  the  cup :  then  suddenly  the  masque 
Shattered  before  him,  and  the  woman,  real 
And  soul-transfigured  with  matured  ideal, 
Faced  him — divine  to  meet  her  mortal  task. 
As  sunlight  breaks  thro'  vistas  grey  with 

rain, 
The  breathless  truth  broke  briefly  on  his 

brain. 
He  paused  and  felt  her  fail  to  understand. 

*  She,  desolate,  shuddered  watching  him  de 

part; 
"The  miracle  of  love's  divine  command 

*  Filled  him,  the  gospel  of  the  human  heart ! 


J35 


SECOND. 

I. 

• 

"Sweet  from  my  sin  I  rise  before  you,  rise, 
"Wild  as  the  vision  and  savour  of  the  sea, 
"Bland  as  the  shadow  of  sleep's  euthanasy 
"Shed  between  burning  lids  and  aching  eyes ! 

"Clothed  in  love's  fire  that  damns  and  purifies, 
"Mistress  and  slave,  I  yield  me  utterly, — 
"Yours  by  the  gods  my  love  reveals  to  me, 
"The  gods  my  pitiless  passion  crucifies ! 

"Love  for  love's  sake  my  body  is  born  again 

"Thrilled  with  a  new  virginity,  my  soul 
1'      "Lends  my  desire  the  dignity  of  pain. 

"For  you  my  lips  are  fire,  my  naked  breast 
"Profound  as  sleep  and  heavens  of  splendour 

roll 
"Over  me,  shattered  with  divine  unrest!" 


J36 


II. 


He  said,  "I  take  you.     Yet  the  laughter  slips, 
"Mocking    your    sacrifice.     Be   still!     The 

phrase 

"Is  vain  since  sense  with  equal  joy  repays 
"Loss  of  the  soul  we  crush  between  our  lips. 
"Where's  soul,  my  Mistress,  when  thy  finger 
tips 

"Drip  wine  till  candles  wither  blaze  by  blaze, 
"And  down  thy  breast  no  song  can  fitly  praise 
"Pale  drop  by  drop  the  ooze  of  daylight; 

drips  ? 
"Why  vex  the  mind  ?    Why  ponder — 'Mine  the 

gain. 

"  'Her  gold  against  my  dross ; — the  sacrifice 
"  'Damns  in  acceptance — Heart  must  yield 

the  pain 

"  'Of  Heart  due  reverence,  give  the  greater  gift 
'  'Denial  ?'  To  scruple  so  were  over-nice. — 
"Drown  me  in  all  your  hair  my  fingers  lift!" 


137 


III. 


"Heart  to  my  heart,"  She  cried,  "and  mouth  to 

mine! 

"Lie  close!  I  feel  you  like  the  pulse  of  life! 
"Desire  has  pained  my  senses  like  a  knife : 
"Lie  close,  that  I  may  know  my  body  thine ! 
"Surely  the  pangs  of  love  are  all  divine, 
"And  haply  tho'  my  ways  of  love  be  dark 
"Their  depths  may  kindle  with  the  saving 

spark ! 
"At    least    my    incense    floats    before    the 

shrine!" 
"Give  me  thy  lips!"  he  cried — and  then  his 

mind 
Suffered  with  truth.    He  said,  "My  soul  was 

blind!" 
"And  mine,"  She  said,  "Till  love  disclosed 

the  light." 

He  fell  beside  her,  "Speak!"  he  cried,  "For  me, 
"For  me  the  loveless — where  is  hope?"  And 

she 
Soothed  him  as  tho'  a  child  who  wept  for 

fright. 


J38 


AT  DAYBREAK. 

I  marked  the  hours  beat  by  beat 
And  felt  the  silent  night  depart : 
I  held  her,  dead  against  my  heart, 

Beside  the  loud,  incessant  street. 

Across  the  daylight  drenched  with  rain 
I  heard  the  world's  familiar  strife, 
My  fingers  held  the  pulse  of  life 

That  ran  the  shaking  scale  of  pain. 

Her  body,  bruised  with  love's  embrace, 
Grew  cold,  and  where  her  lips  were  red 
The  dawn  disclosed  them  grey  and  dead 

Her  eyes  were  dumb — I  kissed  her  face! 

I  kissed  her  tacit  face  and  laid 

My  cheek  on  hers  and  caught  her  hand, 
And  guessed  if  God  would  understand 

And  find  the  joy  of  sin  repaid ! 


Beside  the  loud,  incessant  street 

I  kissed  her  mouth  and  held  her  bound 
Between  my  violent  arms  and  found 

Her  mouth  intolerably  sweet. 

I  held  her  close,  Ah !  close  to  me 

And  kissed  the  scarlet  ring  that  clasped 
Her  throat,  where  all  my  fingers  grasped 

And  crushed  her  life  out  utterly. 

I  kissed  her  lips,  her  cheek,  her  hand, 
My  mouth  was  bitter  salt  with  tears, 
And  she  was  dead. — If  God  appears 

I  wondered,  will  He  understand? 


THE  FINAL  WORD. 

Hear  me !  I  say  to  you — "This  love  of  ours 
Can  never  be  forgiven;  nevermore 
Shall  I,  in  peace  and  silence,  pass  my  door, 

Sad  with  October  sun  and  scattered  flowers, 
Unhaunted  of  thy  memory  as  before. 

Nothing  is  virgin  where  thy  feet  have  trod 
The  byways  of  my  inmost  heart,  and  where 
My  Soul  stretched  flowers  to  catch  the  sky 
ward  air, 
Thy  hands  have  sown  with  chaff  the  fields  of 

God. 
I  know  thy  love  is  loveless  as  despair. 

I  thrilled  in  soul,  God  knows. my  body  fired, 
Kindling  thy  perfect  body,  for  the  food 
Whose  sweetness   proved  pain   sweet  and 
evil  good, 

Till  Life  could  no  more  bear  what  life  desired, 
Until  the  lips  of  life  were  crushed  to  blood. 


J42 

Now  there  is  no  forgiveness.  Go  or  stay — • 
I  cannot  care,  my  love  has  been  so  great ! 
I  am  too  tired  now  to  love  or  hate; 

While  hour  by  hour  I  see,  and  day  by  day 
Life's  tears  roll  down  the  marble  face  of 
fate!" 


143 


TO  C.  L.  G. 

The  old  days  come  near  to  me  like  dead  women 
with  pale  and  tender  hands, 

The  gold  of  their  hair  shakes  down  about  my 
face, 

And  the  light  of  their  eyes  is  tawny  and  sad 
like  the  light  of  large,  calm  sunsets, 

And  their  silence  seems  as  a  fragment  of  eter 
nity. 

The  old  days  come  near  to  me  and  thy  presence 

is  ever  among  them, 
The  presence  of  thy  childhood  fresh  and  dear 

and  dead, 

Thine  infancy  and  mine! 
Linked  in  a  living  memory,  sad  as  love  and 

death  are  sad. 


145 


THE  SONG  OF  MAN. 


THE  SONG  OF  MAN. 

0  come  out  with  me  to  the  New  Gods,  I  have 

fathomed  the  lies  of  the  old, 
And  the  pillars  of  Paradise  crumble  and  the 
ashes  of  Hell  are  grown  cold. 

1  have  striven  and  lived  and  remembered  thro' 

the  range  of  the  numberless  years, 
Until  strange  as  a  dawn  in  the  midnight  the 
goal  of  my  seeking  appears ! 

I  have  dared  in  the  spirit's  conception,  I  have 
shaped  with  the  might  of  my  hands, 

Were  the  dreams  of  my  ecstasy  mortal?  Yet 
godlike  I  wrought  their  commands ! 

In  the  twilight  of  temples  I  builded,  by  the 
flames  of  the  altars  I  fed, 

I  have  trembled  and  wondered  and  wor 
shipped,  yea,  bled  as  the  sacrifice  bled ! 


J48 

I  have  blinded  the  Soul's  aspiration  with  tor 
ture  and  triumph  and  pain, 

I  have  died  for  a  word,  for  an  idol,  for  an  idol, 
a  word  I  have  slain, 

In  the  fear  of  a  merciless  master  I  have  bent 
like  a  slave  to  the  rod, 

I  have  turned  in  my  anger  and  questioned  of 
God  and  the  judgments  of  God. 

I  have  minted  in  marble  and  music  the  gold  of 

the  heart  of  my  youth, 
And  a  maiden's  desire  has  brought  me  the  feast 

of  the  fruit  of  her  mouth. 
I  have  folded  my  love  as  a  mantle  over  limbs 

that  were  naked  for  this, 
I  have  broken  my  heart  on  a  lute-string,  and 

bartered  my  soul  for  a  kiss. 

I  have  lived  with  my  boys  and  my  women  for 

lust  and  the  laughter  of  lust 
Till  the  Love-Goddess,  mortal  in  marble,  was 

shattered  to  shards  in  the  dust, 
And  when  Life  unrelenting  renewed  me  and 

the  soul  of  me  suffered  for  food, 
I  have  waked  to  a  new  revelation,  I  have  canted 

of  evil  and  good. 


I  have  damned  and  divided  in  judgment,  I  have 

'stablished  the  bounds  of  my  blame, 
I  have  tempted  the  soul  with  a  vision,  I  have 

menaced  the  flesh  with  a  flame, 
Till  the  voice  of  my  God  in  his  anger  was  like 

thunder  of  wind  on  the  sea, 
Till  I  cowered  and  sinned  and  was  secret,  till  I 

longed  and  was  feared  to  be  free. 

Till,  too  weak  to  face  God  in  his  heaven,  too 
timid  to  dare  him  in  hell, 

I  defiled  him  with  empty  observance  and  I 
cheapened  his  name  to  a  spell; 

With  a  blasphemy  cynic  with  safety,  with  a 
cowardice  born  of  my  greeds, 

With  the  slime  of  respectable  falsehood,  I  fash 
ioned  a  God  to  my  needs. 

I  have  lied  in  my  soul  as  I  muttered  the  prayers 

of  the  priests  that  I  paid, 
I  have  lied  in  my  heart  as  I  sold  it,  I  have  lied 

for  my  heart  was  afraid, 
I  have  lied  to  the  priests  and  the  people,  I  have 

lied  to  my  body  and  soul 
All  the  lies  that  the  meanest  of  sins  pays  the 

meanest  of  virtues  for  toll ! 


J50 

Then  I  sickened  of  lies  and  discovered  in 
breathless  amazement — at  last 

Soul  and  Body,  to-day  and  to-morrow  released 
from  the  ghosts  of  the  past — 

That,  washed  clear  with  the  tears  of  my  man 
hood,  song-bright  with  the  poems  of  my 
youth, 

Wonder- wide  with  long  dreams  and  desires, 
my  vision  was  trained  for  the  Truth ! 

Yea!  the  silence  of  time  and  its  changes  have 

left  not  a  God  that  was  mine, 
Yea!  my  fashions  of  faith  have  been  faithless, 
Yea !  my  heart  has  been  drained  of  its  wine, 
Yea !  the  lips  of  my  women  have  withered,  and 

for  gold  I  have  minted  my  blood, 
But  at  least  I  have  learned  thro'  the  ages  all  the 
lies  of  the  world  and  of  God ! 

From  the  Syrian  glades  where  the  perfect,  pale 

woman  grew  mortal  for  love, 
From  the  vortex  of  chaos  with  darkness  shed 

under  and  round  and  above, 
In  the  depths  of  the  twilight  of  Asia,  in  the 

myriad  ways  I  have  trod, 
I  have  tried  all  the  fashions  of  living  and  served 

all  the  phases  of  God. 


J5J 

I  have  merged  in  the  spirit  of  Brahma,  I  have 

prayed  by  the  stream  and  the  tree, 
I  have  seen  how  She  rose  as  a  portent  from  the 

bitter,  blue  ways  of  the  sea, 
In  the  name  of  the  wise  Galilean,  by  the  sign  of 

a  merciful  God, 
I  have  plundered,  enslaved,  and  smeared  over 

the  sin  with  the  silence  of  blood. 

My  blood  from  the  altars  of  Ishtar  has  flowed 

to  the  foot  of  the  Cross, 
It  has  dripped  from  the  dewlaps  of  Seket  and 

Venus  has  laughed  at  my  loss, 
I  have  burned  in  the  gardens  of  Nero,  I  have 

died  in  the  circus  at  Rome, 
And  the  wine  of  God's  mercy  I  prayed  for  was 

meagre  and  bitter  as  foam. 

I  have  served  all  the  alien  masters  still-born 

from  my  folly  and  fears, 
I  have  laughed  till  I  wept  in  derision,  I  have 

wept  till  I  laughed  at  my  tears, 
And  I  cry  "Thro'  the  range  of  creation  and 

time  I  have  tested  the  whole, — 
"Then  come  out  with  me  to  the  New  Gods,  the 

Great  Gods,  Body  and  Soul ! 


J52 

'To  the  Gods  who  are  sure  and  sufficient,  who 

are  free  and  more  fatal  than  Fate, 
"Who  can  tally  the  love  of  a  virgin  or  the  heart 

of  a  man  in  his  hate, 
"Who  are  wise  with  a  perfect  remembrance, 

who  reject  not  a  creed  nor  a  crime, 
"Who  compassionate   all,   who   interpret  the 

ways  and  the  wonders  of  Time! 

"Who  have  builded  and  broken  all  laws  of  the 

Heaven  and  Earth,  who  are  free, 
"Who  have  lifted  the  seals  from  the  sunrise, 

made  pregnant  the  womb  of  the  sea, 
"Who  have  scattered  the  phantoms  of  heaven, 

wrecked  the  thrones  of  the  world  and 

their  spell, 
"Who  have  sown  and  reaped  harvest  of  flowers 

in  the  fire- waste  deserts  of  hell ! 

"For  my  God  is  the  friend  that  I  cherish,  and 

my  God  is  the  woman  I  love, 
"My  God  is  the  Spring  on  the  hillsides,  the  Sea 

and  the  marvel  thereof, 
"My  God  is  the  justice  of  sunlight  unhindered 

by  power  or  pelf, 
"And   vast   beyond   all   and   inclusive   of   all 

things,  my  God  is  Myself !" 
^  FINIS, 


UNIVER 


"  BOOK          .  wxl  ON  m" 


A 


'& 


223022 


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